50 Years Ago

From the October 3, 1931 issue

A SEA-GOING LIZARD FROM GALAPAGOS When Darwin, as a young naturalist just out of school, visited the Galpagos islands, he saw a number of things that helped to crystallize and precipitate in his mind the concept, already seeded there, that later revolutionized all biology and much of philosophy. Not the least provocative of speculation was […]

From the September 26, 1931, issue

FLASH WELDING JOINS METAL AMID SHOWER OF SPARKS A brilliant shower of sparks for a few seconds, and two pieces of steel have become one, with a union as strong as the original metal itself. The picture on the front cover from the Pittsfield, Mass., works of the General Electric Company illustrates a recent adaptation […]

From the September 19, 1931, issue

ORCHIDS THAT LOOK LIKE GIRLS Plucked from their stems and stood on the table, they are the daintiest little dancers imaginable–dancers in the latest fashionable costumes at that. Their skirts are long and concealing, tight over the slim hips and flaring widely at the bottom. The dancers stand poised, their arms thrown up and out, […]

From the September 12, 1931 issue

ELEPHANTS JAWBONE SHOWS LIKENESS TO SCOOP SHOVEL Where the idea of the present-day scoop shovel came from is suggested in the illustration on the cover of this weeks Science News Letter. When President Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History received the weird lower jawbone of an ancient Asian elephant, he was […]

From the September 5, 1931, issue

SEEING EYE TO EYE WITH A WHITE WASP The medieval Japanese, who sometimes closed up the fronts of their helmets with ferocious metal masks painted with vivid war paint, knew the right psychology for hand-to-hand encounters. It is much more disconcerting to be confronted with an immobile, wholly artificial hobgoblin face than to see that […]

From the August 29, 1931, issue

HUGE GENERATORS YIELD BEAUTY TO PHOTOGRAPHER Throbbing electric generators, the machines that are the heart of the great system supplying light and power to more than 120 millions, are odd and beautiful subjects for the talented photographer. In the picture on the cover, Rittase of Philadelphia has caught the spirit of one of the largest […]

From the August 22, 1931, issue

THE GIRL ON THE COVER Her name is Janet Penserosa. She is about four years old and her home is at the New York Zoological Park. And now she can claim the distinction of being the first female gorilla to survive in Gothams animal center. Not only that, but she is probably the only gorilla […]

From the August 15, 1931, issue

ANOTHER TEMPLE TO THE WIND GOD Near the little Indian village of Prairieville–the Mexican name is Calixtlahuaca–archaeologists have made a rare and unusual discovery. They have found one of those circular temples to the God of the Wind, seen by the soldiers of Cortez, but not one of which was ever afterward found on the […]

From the August 8, 1931 issue

TWO ARISTOCRATIC LADIES EMERGE FROM RETIREMENT There is something about newly-emerged silkworm moths that makes one think of the ladies of Cathay or Cipangu, long ago and far away, clothed in silk spun by ancestors of todays silk worms. In the cover picture of this weeks Science News Letter, Cornelia Clarke has made an admirable […]

From the August 1, 1931, issue

THE TRUTH ABOUT DEATH VALLEY Death Valley is a deep trough between two mountain ranges. It is something over 100 miles long and averages 10 miles wide. Within less than 100 miles of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the United States proper, it sinks its lowest depression to 276 feet below sea level. This […]

From the July 25, 1931, issue

98-TON BUTTERFLY VALVE, A SIMPLE DEVICE A good place for a photographer to take a picture, this penstock will be serving an even better purpose when it begins to carry water through the dam to turn the huge turbines of the Ruskin power plant, British Columbia. The flow of water through this 19-foot-diameter intake pipe […]

From the July 18, 1931, issue

AIR VIBRATIONS IN ORGAN PIPES REVEALED BY PATTERN IN SMOKE Making smoke rings in organ pipes, to show up the little cyclones that whirl in them when obstacles are placed in the openings, is the curious mode of research adopted by a London physicist, Prof. E.N. da C. Andrade of University College. These little cyclones, […]