From the November 5, 1932, issue

FIELD MUSEUM VISITORS SEE BIT OF ABYSSINIA

Visitors to Chicago can make an effortless side trip to the wilds of Abyssinia by walking down the Carl Akeley Memorial Hall of African Animals in the Museum of Natural History. At the end, a remarkable new group of African mammals has been arranged so as to give a most naturalistic illusion of a vista across a water hole where the beasts meet in a truce imposed by the common foe of all life–thirst.

In a space as big as the proscenium arch of an ordinary theater, with background skillfully portraying the endless African plain dotted with acacias, mimosas, and other characteristic trees, are set giraffes, two-horned rhinoceroses, elands, gazelles, zebras, and an oryx.

The cover illustration shows the giraffe group.

HOW TO H AVE A GOOD TIME IS ADOLESCENTS CHIEF WORRY

The chief problem worrying most adolescents is how to have a good time. Boys and girls of the teen age are not interested in what their parents and teachers consider the big problems of adolescence, Prof. Maurice A. Bigelow, director of the School of Practical Arts, Columbia University, told members of the American Social Hygiene Association at a conference in Washington.

Long study of high school and college students has convinced Prof. Bigelow that adolescence is neither a great cataclysm nor a revolutionary period. He said that 985 out of 1,000 boys and girls grow into, through, and out of this period as naturally as they breathe. The so-called high school problems that worry parents and teachers, such as too much introspection and daydreaming, may be found beginning as early as the eighth or ninth year. The only uniform characteristic of adolescence is the natural awakening of the sex instinct and of social interests. All other alleged characteristics of adolescence complained of by parents and teachers may be found earlier and later in the individuals life and are individual characteristics.

The three big problems that Prof. Bigelow found most adolescents concerned over are how to enjoy themselves, how to get enough money for necessities and luxuries, and how to get ahead in their study and work. He found that most boys between 15 and 19 years old think of what they are going to do when they grow up, what trade or profession they will follow. Also, nearly all of them occasionally think of the time when they will be grown up and have wives and children.

BETTER SAUERKRAUT FROM WASHED CABBAGES

Wash your cabbages before you shred them if you want the best sauerkraut.

This is the moral to be derived from experiments at the University of Wisconsin by a scientific team headed by C.H. Keipper. Tests of the finished product, in hundreds of barrels, by connoisseurs of kraut indicated the product of the washed cabbage head a winner every time.

Shredded cabbage, salted down, becomes sauerkraut through natural fermentation, caused by microorganisms present on the cabbages as they are brought in from the field. These are principally lactic acid bacilli, the germs that cause milk to sour. But in the field dirt that clings to the heads as they are brought in, there are millions of other germs, which are not so good for the kraut. They give it off-flavors and odors, and may spoil it entirely. If the dirt, and these unfriendly germs with it, is washed off, there still are plenty of the right kind of bacteria in the inner leaves to start the proper fermentation.

The natural bacteria can be relied on, the tests indicated. Pure cultures of lactic acid bacteria gave a little better result.