Evening star., 1938-10-06
OF STARS,
MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress
in Field, Laboratory
and Study.
By THOMAS r. HENRY.

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shallow seas which covered large parts
Of the North American continent were
the ammonoids, ancient shellfish whose
closest surviving relative is the cham
bered nautilus of the Indian Ocean.
Starting about 300,0OO.000 years ago
they developed from small, simple ami
gigantic, creatures. During the vast
another until finally, perhaps because "of
too great complexity, they became
extinct.
A complete catalogue of the ammonoid
fossils of North America, 1t is reported
by the Geological Society Of America,
has just been made up by DR.. Arthur c.
State University. This will make pos
sible the comparative dating Of the rocks
in which these fossils are found.
They have long been, Professor Miller
points out, one of sciences best indi-
Gators Of the passage of geological time.
During the millions Of years they swan
swiftly through the warm waters of the
ancient seas that alternately advanced
and retreated across North America, or
they crawled along the bottom with the
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prey. When they died on the sea bot
toms they were buried in mud and slime,
which afterward hardened into beds of
shale and limestone. The more complex
the form found in these rocks, generally
speaking, the later the strata are in the
geological time scale.
Growth of an individual ammonoid,
Professor Miller explains resembled that
of .l,o t1,,c IA q
began life in a single -chambered shell.
AS it grew, new and increasingly large
chambers were formed, and the animal
moved forward in them, occupying each
of the chambers in turn. Shells OF ma
ture ammonoids representing late
state Of evolution were always spiral in
shape, the animal living in the foremost
chamber.
Professor Miller states that the am
monoids were abundant in European seas
as far back in the geologic past as the
Devonian period, or Age Of Fishes, and
that their fossils are widely used abroad
to identify rock strata of that period.
In North America, however. they have
been little used, largely because descrip-
tions of them are scattered and not read
lily available to students.
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From rocks laid down in many sections
of the United States and Canada about
400 100000 years ago. remains Of 149
species of bivalved shellfish new to
science have been collected, according
to a report to the Geological Society OF
America by Dr. E. o. Ulrich. formerly
Of the Geological Survey. and DR.. G.
Arthur Cooper of the National Museum.
These creatures. resembling clans, had
tough, ibrous shells, some Of which were
ornately ornamented. They were dis
covered in a hitherto almost unknown
group Of nmestones and shales originally
laid down in the Ozarkian and Canadian
periods OF geological history. These
rocks were first found and classified by
DR.. Ulrich.
Before the fossils could be studied they
had to be freed from the surrounding
limestone and shale by dissolving the
more soluble rock in hydrochloric acid,
or by using painstaking mechanical
methods. Then the interiors and ex-
teriors of all specimens were scrutinized
for the most minute details OF structure.
x'S
Little girls get their permanent teeth
earlier than little boys. Hence, at the
same ages. they have more cavities.
This finding, based on survey Of more
than 1000 children in the elementary
schools of Hagerstown, Md, is reported
by Drs. Henry Klein and Carroll E.
Palmer Of the United States Public
Health Service.
Actually, they say, girls have as good
teeth as boys on the basis Of tooth age"
But in this respect the little girl is
always older than the little boy Of the
same chronological age.
1t was hard for demobilized Confed-
crate Navy surgeon to return to the
humdrum life OF Virginia village In
1865.
So, embittered both against the VIC
torious North and the South which
seemed to have condemned him to a
career of small-town monotony, DR..
Francis Land Gault of Upperville, Va,
jumped at an opportunity to enter the
services of the Peruvian government to
carry out, with other former Confederate
Navy officers, photographic survey OF
the upper Amazon in 1870.
The party, in command Of former
Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker,
who had reorganized the Peruvian Navy
after the Civil War, made detailed
scientific study of what at the time was
essentially an unknown land. DR.. Gault's
particular job was to study the birds,
animals and plants of the region, espe-
cially those which might have any eco
nomic or medicinal value. He kept an
extensive journal in which he recorded
not only the events of the survey but
descriptions of his collections and
accounts of the natives whom he
encountered
This journal was never published,
although undoubtedly intended for pub
lication The manuscript has just been
purchased from q relative OF DR.. Gault
by the Bureau of American Ethnology
of the Smithsonian Institution. 1t is OF
especial value because 1t contains prac-
tically a complete list OF the Indian
tribes of the upper Amazon concerning
some of whom there Is elsewhere no
mention.
The manuscript now is being studied
by members of the Bureau Of Ethnology
staff. Much Of value is to be found, 1t
is believed, in the Virginia physicians
lists and descriptions Of the medicinal
plants of the region and the uses to
which they were put by the Indians.
There is one, for example, which is de-
scribed as, according to DR.. Gault's
Indian informant, sovereign remedy
against falling hair. Several native love
notions are described as well as herb,
bark and root remedies for most Of the
common maladies.
DR.. Gault also made detailed meteoro-
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