Evening Star Newspaper, July 27, 1924, Page 57

FICTION- Part 5—8 Pages MAGAZINE SECTION The Sundy Stae N FEATURES WASHINGTO! SUNDAY MORNING, JULY Scout for Science Eludes Peril's 1n Remote Section of China BY WILL P. KE ROM a most primitive people, in regions infested by bandits, amid filth and squalor, Joseph . Rock, plant explorer for the United States Department of Agricul- ture, and botanical, biological and anthropological scout for the Na- tional Geographic Society, has brought £pecimens of inestimable value. Having suffered much, both in mind and body—on his own resources among NEDY. an outland people, his life constantly menaced, and distressed even more by vexatious concern lest his hard- won specimens of rare seeds and his films of value to students of geogra- phy, botany, natural science and the histo'y of man should disappear through ignorant cupidity—Dr. Rock | is now receiving the plaudits of sc entists will profit through his who daring. Chief ar the benefactions that will result from Dr. Rock's expedi- tion are the cstablishment in tropical America of a dependable source of Jupply of chaulmoogra oil, for the Jure of leprosy, and the introducti Into this country of a blight-resistant nut tree of particular impor- to the tanning industry But th lHustrations give only a faint idea of the magnitude of h work, for his collection includes more | than 500 mammals; 1,700 bird speci- rer 1e of which were previously | unknown here: nearly 500 specimens | of rhododendrons and §0.000 | other plants, besides copies of curious ancient writings and picturesque lan- Euag nd grains of corn garnered atong the Tibet-Burma frontier of China which may prove to be the bo- tanical Rosetta stone of the earliest American history yet recorded. Joseph R. Rock was for some 15| years in Hawail, where he did a great | deal of botanical work and wrote | monographs on Hawaiian botany While there he became interested in | the leper colony and the attempts to | cure leprosy by means of the chaul- | moogra oil. When it was found that | cuch treatment was successful and it} became necessary to have a reliable cource of supply, Dr. Rock determined to go to Burma and Siam, the natu- ral habitat of the trees from which this oil was sccured, study them in their native clime and gather seeds to be planted in Hawaii. The whole subject of oil was shrouded in obscurity. It came out the jungles in Burma and no in civilization knew what trees it Dr. Rock came to Washington 1919 and enlisted the support of the Department of Agriculture. He went to Burma in 192 and 1921, and spent many months there studying the sources of chaul- moogra oil and harvesting seeds. As several thousand young tr grown here at the de- pariment's experimental farm and were sent to tropical America to be et out When Dr. Rock returned from that trip. he reported very interesting plants in northern Burma, and ex- pressed a desire to explore that re- for mew plants. He was sent in July, 1921, by the Depart- ment of Agriculture to conduct a three-vear exploration of Yunnan province, in southwestern China. In January, I the direction of his work was transferred to the Na- tional Geographic Society, so that for the last 18 months he has been With that organization, whose liberal support has enabled him to extend his activities so as to cover a wider range of subjects, and more terri- tory, than he was able to do as an cxplorer for the Department of Agri- culture. It is through the public spirited zenerohsity of the National Geo- graphic Soclety that the Smithsonian Institution has received thousands of specimens of natural history and the Department of Agriculture has received an invaluable collection of rare seeds for introduction into the United States. * % k¥ R ROCK'S first object, sailed three years ago, secure additional seeds of the chaul- moogra-yielding trees found in north- ern Siam and Burma, as on his carlier trip he had studied and identi- fied several species and secured the original seeds for planting in the American tropics and Hawail For the first year and a half he limited himself to the collection of seeds likely to have economic value when planted in the United States, and herbarium specimens. As has become pretty generally known through newspaper and maga- zine articles, the use of chaulmoogra ©il in the treatment of leprosy has been attended with success in Hawail, and experimentation by epecialists in the Department of Agriculture laboratories has im- proved the method of extracting this oil so as to intensify its curative qualities. Tt seems highly probable that medical science has at last found, in the esters of chaulmoogric acid, a specific for this dread disease. The establishment of the trees which yield this oil in Hawail and else- Where, to make available large quan- tities of the product, has been a m: ter of importance. From seeds se- cured by Dr. Rock, a plantation of considerable size has already been started in Hawali, and during the present yvear, the office of forelgn seed and plant introduction, bureau of plant industry, has sent several thousand trees to the American trop- fcs. Experimental plantings are now being made in Porto Rico, the Canal Zone, Cuba and elsewhere. During his second year in the field Mr. Rock collected many wild chest- nuts in the Province of Yunnan, southwestern China, hoping to find species which would be useful in re- placing the chestnut forests of the United Statcs, rapidly isappearing through tbe ‘epread of chestnut sight XX !s thought that some of the Asiatic species may be more re- sistant to this disease than the American. He also obtained in Yun- nan many wild species of Pyrus and Malus, relatives of the cultivated apple and pear, which are to be tested s stock plants on which to graft. Toward the end of his third year abroad Dr. Rock penetrated into the ong some haulmoogra | one came from in result were a &ion back when he was to Joseph F. Rock, Who Went Abroad for Department of Agriculture and Later Represented Geographic Society, Brings Back Remarkable Specimens of Plant, Animal and Bird Life, and Points Way to Study of Possible Link Between Early Races of This Continent and of Asia. Tropical America Gets Dependable Source of Oil for Leprosy Cure, and Blight-Resisting Chestnut Tree Is Promised to This Country—New Story of Creation and Flood. e WiLZARD, from the viflage of NguluRo, it Yunnan going. 3 troudh 2 ritual- istic dance. 5'PECULIAR. IDOL at entraunce to the Buddhist temple in the vill age of Nanchien. voted special attention to ornamental plants during this period and sent to the United States a large collection of new rhododendrons, as well as many primulas, gentians, delphiniums and other plants. These were found in the higher mountains of Yunnan at elevations between 6,000 and 12,000 feot. Dr. Rock collected many thousands of herbarlum specimens, which will prove of great value in making known the flora of a remote and isolated part of the world. * X % ¥ UNDER the auspices of the Na- tional Geographic Society he col- lected birds and mammals in addition borderiand of Tibet and jexplored several little known regions. He de- to seeds and continued the work of 3 bringing togcther an immense series of Yunnon herbarium specimens. Wilson Popenoe, agricultural ex- plorer in charge of the foreign seed and plant introduction work of the Bureau of Plant Industry of the De- partment of Agriculture, says that the seeds gathered by Dr. Rock “in- clade the most remarkable collection of rhododendrons ever brought to- gether; numerous rare and promising species of primrose, larkspur, gentian and other flowering plants; several rare conifers from the mountains of Yunnan, and many new chestnuts.” Dr. Rock's collection of rhododen- drons, comprising some 500 species, will be of great value to horticul- turists in the United States and pa m,é an offic1ial visit to the madistrate Puerfu R9. “MAIN STREET” In the town of Szemao Yunnan. Part of MrRocks edcort while traveling inYannaro. doubtless will result in establishing in this country many new species of these handsome flowering - shrubs. They come mainly from the high mountains of Yunpan and exhibit wide range in habit of growth and color of fiower. A complete set of these rhododen- drons has been sent to Kew Gardens, at London; another to the Royal Gardens at Edinburgh, Scotland, and one each to the Hon. Vicary Gibbs and A. K. Bulley, both of England, amateurs who specialize in these TALIEU, looking towards the Tsangsh an m“éf'/- LISSO WOMEN in gala dress. plants and whose collections are famous. In the United States they have been planted .at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; in the Puget Sound region and along the Eastern seaboard. . Later, when the seeds sown in the Department of Agriculture green- houses near Washington have devel- oped into sturdy young plants, further distributions will be made in this country. Dr. Rock’s chestnuts include sev- eral species hitherto unknown in the horticultural world, and perhaps new even to botanical science. The gentians, primroses and other alpine plants, seeds of which have been gathered by Dr. Rock, will be of great interest, not only to gar- denérs in this country but also to those in Europe. Some of the seeds have been sent by the Department of Agriculture to botanlc gardens and plant men in Great Britain, while others are being grown in the plant *. introduction gardens maintained by the Bureau of Plant Industry and will later be distributed to experimenters in this country. So it may be said that Dr. Rock’s exploration of the little-known Prov- ince of Yunnan has added enormously to botanical knowledge of that region. It should be emphasized that the National Geographic Society, with conspicuous generosity, presented to the Department of Agriculture this rare collection of seeds, hoping that the many thousands of plants raised from them will prove a valuable as- set to our forests, fields and gardens. * % % % MONG the most Interesting of Dr. Rock’s trophies are original copies and the first known transla- tions of the curious religious books of the aboriginal Nashti tribe in- habiting the Yunnan region, used by the Moso priests. These relate the story of the creation similar in many respects to that ¢old in the Bible and include a description of a great flood. These books are in ancient picture writing and antedate Buddhism in China and Tibet The Nashti is one of about 30 ab- original non-Chinese tribes living in the Province of Yunnan, and with many of these tribes Dr. Rock came in contact. He was the only white man on the National Geographic ex- pedition and had scores of Nashti as- sistans. Several of these acted as the explorer's interprete This religious book. with its story of the creation and flood, is about 10 inches long and three inches wide with a red cover of painted design | The pages of manuscript, in the pe- culiar picture writing resembling Zyptian hieroglyphics, tell of the t man and first woman, of the cre- ation of the land and rivers, and other events the world. . The books we the tribe from ger tion, through the says. Only them, and Dr. ns of the beginning of re handed down in eration to genera- ages, Dr. Rock the priests could read Rock had a priest read each section to his Interpreter, who in turn translated it into Chinese which Dr. Rock himself wrote down The Nashti, or Moso tribe, has an- other form of writing, which appears to be morc advanced and which con tains some Chinese characters, but the priest refused to read for Dr Rock anything in this other writing. Supplementing these old religious books, Dr. Rock took hundreds of photographs of weird religious and tribal ceremonies and customs, o that where little has heretofore been known about these aboriginal peo- ple, their life can now be visualized to the world. Until some 270 years ago, when the Chinese for a time invaded the terri- tory of the Nashti and neighborinz tribes, these aborigines had never had contact with the rest of China according to Dr. Rock's investiga- tions. He found the Nashti men and wom- en black-haired, of brownish skin, many of them rosy-checked Another interesting tribe was the Lissos, whose women, especially, had extremely interesting scheme of Though related to the Chinese by ties of race, they are not properly Chinese, ¢xcept politically. Dr. Rock found these tribes for ths most part hospitable. The native tribes of the Yunnan region still practice their own crremonial dances, which have been forbidden by Chinese authorities The old picture-story tion will probably be Smithsonian Institution, which has also received hundreds of mammal and bird specimens from Dr. Rock. The stuffed bodies of two great {Chinese fiying squirrels will shortly be placed on exhibition. They meas- ure approximately 4 feet from tip to tip. Dr. Rock obtained them in Tsch Chung, Yunnan province. The fur of these animals is thick and of a rich brownish red hue that appears glossy in a powerful light. Unusually long claws and sharp, pointed teeth are features of these specimens. The fly- ing squirrels frequently occasion fear among the natives of Yunnan by their swift flight from tree to tree, a companied by a sound of breaking Eranches Curators at the National say that the flying squirrel to a Chinese species known as “petau- | rista They are comparatively rare and presentation of Dr. Rock’s speci- mens is 'ooked upon as a valuable additios to the collection of mammals of the cree- placed in the Museum belong e UST as a picce of black basalt unlocked the annals of hidden Egyptian centuries. so the corn ker- nels sought by Dr. Rock on the National Geographic Society expedi- tion may reveal clues to Americans who lived long vears before Colum- bus came, or even before denizens of Chaco Canyon’s giant communal apartment houses mysteriously disap- peared The facts that hold forth this ten- uous, but tenable hope are these Indian corn, or maize, is of undoubted American origin. But Chinese rec- ords show that corn was grown in China before Columbu time. Marco Polo did not mention it, but then, he also overlooked tea. the Geographic | Society pioneer comments. Chinese records, such as might today be described as Income tax returns, show ithat long before 1492 tribute corn was acceptable as the latter-day tribute, silk. In fact, it was nick- named “imperial wheat.” The particular ciue of which Dr. Rock was working for the National Geographic Society is furnished by the mystery of the waxy endosperm. The tissue inside a grain of American field corn contains starch; that of sweet corn contain sugar. In a few places in China, western Yunnan among them, this tissue is found to be waxy. Hence Dr. Rock, as the Sherlock Holmes of botany, has been -studying this variation. By noting the locali- ties where it appears he may be able to trace the route by which it entered China. Tt is conceivable he might | estimate how long it took a product as indigenous to America as the potato to develop in its new environ- ment. The study of Chinese corn may extend the corn-growing acreage in the United States considerably. For the waxy maize has characteristics which seem to adapt it for regions where droughts occur. Its erect leaf blades, their arrangement on one side of the stalk, and its production of silks before the ears emerge com- bine to prevent drying out of the silks before pollination, In Burma or. Rock found the husks of waxy maize used as wrappers for chéap cigars—a fact to which Rie- ling alludes in the “Whackin' White Cheeroot” of “Mandalay.” Nature and man disclose surprises on every hand in the region through which Dr. Rock explored—leaf-eating monkeys, rope bridges which sling protesting mules airily across the frequent streams, green parrots feed- ing on red berries, gorgeous valleys of brillant flowers, fields of opium, men bedecked with beautiful jewels, and (Continued on Fourth Page) $