Evening star., 1941-03-18
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henri.

UclllS.
One, which governs the size, is two or
threefold more powerful than three
others which govern individual height
and thickness
Evidence for these conclusions, based
on growth analyses of nearly 800 indi-
viduals, has just been presented to the
National Academy of Sciences by DR.. j..
j. Cohen of University College, London.
In the past, he points out in his report,
there has been much controversy over
these growth controllers, based mostly
on studies of rabbits and guinea pigs.
The nature of the factors themselves
cannot be determined They are bound
complex of the individual. Children of
large parents are likely to be large. 1t
is not quite so safe bet that children of
tall parents will be tall or children of
fat parents fat.
The major factor revealed in DR..
Cohens analysis governs the total size
of the body. It determines that there
shall be so much flesh, blood and bone
to make up the individual and the body
processes are adjusted to produce this
amount Of growth. The shape which
the flesh, blood and bone will fill is a
different matter, due to something which
may not be at all related to the general
growth factor, although in its mani
festations it must be governed by it.
One subsidiary factor, he points out,
apparently makes for longitudinal growth
or tallness. Still another may de-
termine corpulency. Both can use only
material which has been provided for
them by the ruling power in the heredi-
tary complex.
The body must grow, DR.. Cohen says
in his report, along three axes and
stimulation or retardation of growth in
any of these directions determines
whether an individual will be short and
fat or tall and thin. He reaches his con-
clusions by an extremely laborious
mathematical analysis of head length,
breadth and circumference, trunk
length, chest and depth, stature, sitting
height, arm length, leg length, shoulder
breadth, waist circumference and va
rious facial features The study is one
of the most intensive ever made on
human beings.
Charred bones of children found in
Indian graves in Virginia may be evi-
dence that the tribesmen of Powhatan
and Pocahontas made living sacrifices of
boys and girls to terrible "Quioquas-
cacke," a rain god
For several years archeologists exca-
waiting Indian burial sites along the Po-
tomac dating from about the period of
the earliest white colonists have been
puzzled by finding burned bones in the
pits. These were usually remains of
children, although occasionally an adult
bone was encountered.
The same evidence has just been OBJ
tanned from excavation of burial pit on
the York River, near West Point, Va,
by DR.. T. D. Stewart. Smithsonian In
stitution anthropologist. The great ma
Jouty OF the bones, which were placed
in the pit in bundles, showed no signs of
charr1ng. This shows, DR.. Stewart con-
tends, that they could not have burned
In the pit itself.
A clue to the puzzle comes from one of
the oldest sources of Virginia history.
the Relation of Virginia of the English
man Henry Spelman, contemporary of
Capt John Smith.
In ye Patomeke cuntry,' wrote Spell
man, as quoted by DR.. Stewart, they
haue an other god when they call
Quioquascacke, and unto ther images
they offer beades and copper if at any
time they want rayne or haue to much,
and though they obserue no day to wor-
shipe ther god: But upon necessitye.
yet ono in the yeare, ther preests which
are ther conjurers with We men, women
and children doe goe into the woods,
wher ther preests makes a great cirkell
OF fler IN ye which, after many obseru-
ances IN ther conjuration they make offer
Of 2 or children to be giuevn to ther
god II he will apeare unto them and
shew his mind whome he desier.
''Uppon which offringe they heare a
noyse out of We cirkell nominatinge such
as he will haue, whome presently they
take bindinge them hand and footte
and cast them into We cirkell of We
fer. for be it the HINGES soone he must
be given if named by ther god. After We
bodies which are offered are consumed
in We fer and ther cerimonees performed
the men depart merily, the weomen
weaping."
Another possible explanation is that
the bones. collected for some time before
being put in pit, finally inferred with
ceremony which included the burning
OF one or more skeletons. The Spelman
story, hitherto disregarded by anthropol-
ogists, is fundamentally improbable,
Smithsonian experts point out. These
Indians were Algonquins, members of
the great and diverse family which in
habited the Atlantic seaboard from Lab
rador to North Carolina. The practice
of human sacrifice is not reported else
where among them. 1t was practiced
among the Muskogean peoples of the
Gulf States and by the Aztecs in Mexico,
who had theocratic forms of tribal or
ganization. The name Quioquascacke
for deity has a Southern flavor about
1t.
But it is possible, they explain, that
there may have been some infiltration of
the Muskogean religious practices
among these southernmost of Algon-
quins whose original home, from which
Il. ~