Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1921-04-07

Or henry ID. RuSDy OF COIumDa university Is
leading a large body of American scientists in an
attempt to explore the sources of the Amazon. Its
immediate program is to traverse more than 0OO
square miles of the virgin land in the upper
reaches of the river basin. Members of the expe-
dition include DR.. David Starr Jordan, president
of Leland Stanford university, and DR.. Carl H.
Egenmann of the University of Indiana, who will
study fish and reptiles; Doctor Ruthven of the
University of Michigan, who will study frogs and
DR.. Edward Kromers of the University Of WiscoE-
sin and Prof A. H. Gill of the Massachusetts, In
stitute of Technology, who will investigate seeds
and volatile oils.
Two young Americans sailed from New York the
other day for South America to search for a vast
store of wealth supposed to lie in the chimney"
of the diamond deposits of British Guiana. At
Georgetown, the capital of the British possession,
they will be joined by a third adventuresome
American who has outfitted in Paris.
The expedition is under the patronage of Har-
ward university and the Smithsonian institution of
Washington, for which it will carry on geograph-
ical explorations. William J. LaVarre, Jr, a Har-
ward graduate of 1918. heads the party and his
fellow explorers James Macdonald of Lima,
O., and Dudley Lewis of Springfield, Mass. They
expect to spend more than year in the jungle.
Besides an attempt to follow the scattered de-
positS of precious stones several hundred miles
through tangled reptileinfested wilderness their
source long known to exist somewhere in the hill
country, but never discovered, the expedition will
take observations of the aboriginal inhabitants and
geological features of the country, as well as cap
ture specimens of native wild animals for the
Smithsonian institution and National Geological
garden at Washington.
Establishing headquarters in the prairie country
40 miles up the Mazaruni river, which flows into
the Essequbo, the diamond hunters will begin
work on the alluva1 lands bordering streams on
the eastern watershed of the Sierra Pacaraima
mountains which separate British Guiana from
Venezuela.
The area in which the expedition will operate
has been known since the middle Of the last CEN
tury rich diamond field, although its mac
cessbility and the prevalence of tropical diseases
have served to discourage prospecting by white
men. Thousands of carats of the gems, said to
be fine any in the world however, are taken
out annually by negro miners employing primitive
methods.
Somewhere every spot where diamonds
are found in considerable numbers there must be
a chimney" explained Mr.. LaVarre. The quail
ity of stones taken from the vicinity where his
party will work points to chimney" rich or
richer than those of the South African diamond
fields.
The vanguard of the missing link" expedition
left New York the other day. The mission of the
scientists will keep them in the vast untrodden
of Asia for five years. When they return to
America they hope to have evidence that the
missing link" between man and beast actually
existed. Also they expect to bring back thousands
of animal and botanical specimens to fill the pro-
posed Hall of Asiatic Life in New York.
Roy Chapman Andrews, leader of two former
scientific parties into China heads the expedition.
Joined in Asia by scores of native guests, hunts
men, cooks and helpers the scientists expect to
introduce American automobiles moving picture
cameras and other modern machines on the Cobb
desert central Asian plateaus Tibetan steppes and
other itte-known lands.
The first base of the party will be established
in Mongolia, where the scientists expect to remain
"a months before penetrating western China.
After the vanguard has spent year in Mongolia,
a second group of scientists will leave New York
to join them. Northeastern and central Asia will
be thoroughly gone over in a study of the origin
and migration of man, to prove dsprove the
popular scientific belief that Asia was the center
of dispersal of the human race, as well as for