Evening star., 1940-06-29
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henrp.

By Thomas r. Henry.
Tin is ghostly blue gas In the sun
and the stars
For the first time 1t now win be pos
sible to identify this will-'o-the -wisp
metal in the most minute amounts wher-
eyer 1t occurs in the universe with the
completion at the United States Bureau
OF Standards of the job of photographing
Its complete spectrum.
1t Is mostly invisible reports DR.. Will
liam F. Meggers OF the bureau stan.
Tin like every other element in creation,
emits light peculiar to itself when 1t Is.
made luminous. This light is p combi-
nation Of lights of different wave.lengths.
There are 378 altogether. DR.. Meggers
found, but the great majority OF them
are in the invisible ultraviolet or in the
black light" beyond the red end OF the
spectrum.
A single visible wave length of light
near the edge of the blue, he says, so
oyerwhelms all the others that luminous
tin is blue. 1t also emits very intense
radiation in the ultraviolet band. There
Is a wide variation in the spectrum de-
pending on the number of outer elec-
irons stripped off the tin atom.
In the past, DR.. Meggers points out,
the spectrum of tin available to SCI
entists has been very confused and diff
cult to read. The new spectrum already
has made possible at Princeton Univer-
sity the identification of "tin light" in
the light OF the sun. Unquestionable
identification of single one of DR.. Meg
gers 373 lines makes certain the presence
of the element in the source of the light.
1t is now established that there is a con-
siderable amount of tin in the atmo-
sphere of the sun. but it is manifested
only by its ghost lines.
New light on the art techniques of the
mysterious Hopewell people, the Mound
Builders of the Middle West, comes from
the accidental discovery near Kansas
City of an intact specimen OF the instru-
ment with which they made their intri-
cate geometric and other designs on
pottery.
1t Is deer horn, with notches cut in
its ellptical bottom. so that it consti-
tutes a roulette. BY rolling" this over
the nhardened clay the Mound Builder
artist was able to produce easily designs
which would have been very difficult to
make with stamp.
The find was made by H. M. Trow-
bridge OF Kansas City and sent to the
Smithsonian Institution, where 1t was
welcomed by anthropologists as the solu-
ton Of a problem over which there has
been much controversy DR.. Waldo @.
Wedel of the Smithsonian staff, using
the instrument in the laboratory, was
able to duplicate almost perfectly the
style Of decoration found on pottery
fragments recovered from the Kansas
City area. This is on the periphery of
the Mound Builder territory.
The Hopewell people represented in
Central North America the highest de-
velopment of aboriginal civilization,
comparable to that of the Maya In
Yucatan and the Aztecs around Mexico
City, although probably not so far ad-
vanced. Unlike the others, however, all
traces of them are prehistoric. The
Mayas, the Aztecs and the pueblo build
ers of the Southwest were f1ourishing
when the white man came and their
descendants in the direct line are still
living.
But nobody knows what became of the
Hopewellians There are not even any
Indian legends about them. 1t is highly
unlikely that they disappeared without
trace. They must be represented in
the ancestry of some living tribes. All
efforts to connect their culture with that
OF any extant people, however have end
ed in failure.
For this reason, Smithsonian anthro-
biologists explain, new evidence of any
sort concerning them and their ways Of
life is likely to prove of exceptional value.
A hitherto unknown tool, used so far as
Is known by no other Indian tribe, thus
becomes an object OF considerable in
terest.
Nearly Identical drums used by medi-
cine men in the jungles of Nigeria and
the forests of Haiti, furnishing a strik-
ing example of the conservatism and
tenacity of religio-magic, have just been
added to the collections of the Smith
sonian Institution.
The Nigerian drums, used in the ma
tive juiu rites, were collected by C. C.
Roberts, former American naval officer,
who now is engaged in the palm oil busi-
ness in West Africa and has made ex-
tensive chronological collections
The Haitian instruments, used in the
voodoo rites, were collected by American
marine officers formerly on duty in the
republic. The striking feature is the
similarity. Haiti was peopled largely by
West Africans. The Atlantic Ocean and
two centuries separates them from their
ancestral home. Voodooism has been
frowned upon and becomes at times a
practically prescribed cult. 1t is today
practiced in secret-which Is the chief
reason for all sorts of wild rumors con-
corning it. Its traditions have been
passed down entirely by word of mouth.
Yet the central instruments of jujuism
and voodooism differ in hardly a single
detail. Both have tall, slender wooden
cylinders with goat skins stretched
tightly over them. They are painted
with the same red and blue stripes. The
exact technique for making them must
have been passed down unchanged from
medicine man to medicine man out of an