Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-07-02

WASHINGTON, D. c., June 27.-Per-
w haps the nearest thing in existence
w to a pictorial representation of the
human race and its works in all of their
variety is contained in the collection of pho
tographs owned by the national geographic
society here, which has taken for it's mission
in life to make all parts of the world known
to all of its inhabitants.
FOR many years the most accurate de-
scription possible was relied upon to teach
to the home-k, eping the customs, dress, CHI
mate, religion, flora, fauna, likes and dis
peoples. Eagerly though this was received,
the most skilful writing in the would was
not found entirely to fill the bill. The mar
vels\and beauties of the world could not be
pictured adequately in cold type. Something
better and more human was needed, and the
camera supplies it.
Since the. men have been Drawing the ele-
ments and the whims and prejudices of
strange peoples the world over in order that
pictures of Life as it is in every nook and cor
ner might be procured and presented to mill
lions of people doomed by circumstance to a
frst-hand view of only a small portion of
the earth's surface.
Although approximately 1900 of these
photographs are published yearly by the ma
tional geographic society, there are filed
away in it's Washington offices and awaiting
presentation some 900 other pictures of
the widest range, the subjects varying from
the southern polar regions to the earth
northern axis from the snow-capped peaks or
the Himalayas to our own Death Valley; and
as geography includes the fauna, the collec-
ton extends to the Wondrous fish who spend
their lives hundreds of fathoms deep in tropi-
cal waters, as we'll as the feathered songsters
of the skies.
Many popular but erroneous ideas have
been exploded by this wide use Of the camera.
Pictures dispelled the idea that Chinaman Is
congenitally u. BILE to laugh. Mothers of
children in far-off India lavish the same az
lection on their offspring as do mothers IN
Louisiana or Connecticut. An East Indian
woman, possessed of a daughter, does not in
variably hurl her progeny into the gaping
jaws of the crocodiles of the sacred Ganges,
any more than the shark turns over on It's
back to rend it's prey.
Pictures That Are Hard to Get
In many lands notably in the Moslem coun-
tries, the greatest persuasion is necessary to
induce men and women to submit to having
tehir photographs taken as explorers, photog-
raphers and staff men fthe Geographic So
ciety would have them taken Often there
is met a flat determination that no picture
shall be taken, all of which is born Of an an
cient law.
Mohammed, founder of the religion bearing
his name, to guard against having his follow
ers slip bacv into idolatry, expressly forbade
the pictured representation of any living
thing, and this injunction is largely needed by
the believers in Allah to this Cay. Often they
carry it further, and look with suspicion and
distrust upon any one who disregards the
mandate of the Prophet. The eye Of the ca
mera is to them an evil thing, to be stunned
as the plague. Despite this handicap many
picture of the peoples Of the Moslem world
have appeared in the publication of the So
ciety, even one of the sacred carpet at Mecca,
and hundreds more are in the files of the or
ganiZation.
The general use of the camera IN some of
the show PAGES OF the world, not only by
professional photographers and artists, but
by tourists, has brought a realization to the
peoples of some of these places that they can
gain pelf by posing. In Sicily this has re-
suited in practically every native refusing to
be Photographic merely as a courtesy. SO
generally has this spread through the island
that it is now almost an impossibility to OBJ
tain even casual sna pshot unless the natives
are paid for their services. Thus posing has
come to be an important source of revenue to
the peasants there.
The oasis of Biskra, in Algeria is another
instance. Staff men of the Geographic so.
ciety have found disinclination to being
photographed on the part of the residents
there which at first put down to rel1-
gious scruples. Yet the aversion to the cam
era was quickly overcome at the sight OF
money. The picturesque people of the oasis
had found demand for their portraits with
the background of their romantic haunts,