Evening Star Newspaper, June 8, 1930, Page 97

Sorest never wse & trap. They use only spears bows and arrows. They will not touch or flesh of a gorilla or chimpanzee. Notwith- standing their great courage, they avoid the gorillas, since contact with the great apes may »prove dangerous and can be of no advantage to them. Several pygmies whom Derscheid met told him that they had never seen a live gorilla and that they knew of the animal only by hear- ing stories from their trib:smen. Other Ppygmies, familiar with gorillas, stated that it is unwise to climb a tree in face of a charging gorilla because of the likelihood of being trapped. They told him not to go into a dense tnicket in cas: of danger, as there the gorillas move easily and pay no attention to thorns. Usually when a native disturbs a gorilla, thereby provoking a charge, the native is warned by the “bark” of the gorilla. Since only a single gorilla charges, a native, if aware of what is happening, is able to protect himself. The method seems to be always the same. The gorilla, running but not leaping, is stopped in tis charge by a specar which the native holds near the ground with its blunt end thrust inta the earth at a narrow angle. Conflicts between natives and gorillas are difficult to study, be- cause the natives, realizing now that the white men wish to protect the gorillas, are afraid to give information. They fear being jailed i it is known that they have ever kill:d a gorilla. Only the pygmies freely admit the truth in such matters. THE testimony of Mguru, who had also . served as gorilla guide for Mr. Burbridge, Mr. Barns and several other white visitors to the Kivu, seems to me pertinent to this discus- sion. His replies to my questions were infer- preted for me and I quote thom in the form of a questionnaire with answers: How long have you, Mguru, been a guide? Since long before the war. How long have you known the volcanoes? Since long before the white man came to bunt. Why did you come up to the Karisimbi, Mikeno and Bishoke fcrests? Y came to trap duiker and to hunt hydrax with dogs. Did you see gorillas then when trapping? Yes, many, before white men began to shoot— often 20 or 30 in one place and in one family., How did these gorillas behave then? Some lay in beds. Sometimes I saw 10 and 20 lying in beds. Never, never run away from me. Only looked at me long, long time. How close did you go to them? As close as 15 feet when I came on them I deep vegetation suddenly. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 8 1930. _—eeee e ———— Three of Carl Akeley's mounted gorillas in the American Museum of Natural History. Did you ever hear gorillas make a noise? Yes, at daybreak they make a trumpet noise, a little like an elephant, but not so big. You could hear it one-half mile. Then one other nose, not as big as a lion, but like a drum. Famous Sea Rescues ;f]ust Lok " Continued jrom Eleventh Page waters with Admiral Evans’ fieet. During this trip he thought out a way to secure his master’s papers. He grew a very luxuriant beard. Nearly a year after the young officer had first visited Admiral Martix he again called on him and requested that he be given a captaincy. Admiral Marix looked at the long, flowing beard and signed the desired papers. The following day Capt. Randall appeared clean-shaven. ‘The captain likes to spin a yarn of the men and the ships and sometimes of the enemies he has met. He told one dealing with the torpedoing of the President Lincoln just before the armistice. (The President Lincoln was sister ship to the Republic, which Capt. Randall once commanded.) It is chiefly because he was a passenger on the Lincoln and therefore officially an onlooker that he likes to talk of that morning. “WB were on deck, a couple colonels and I. One of them, looking fore, said: ‘What’s that, captain, a whale?’ I had a look and told them I'd never seen any whale act like that before. “Then in a minute they came through the water—the prettiest pair of torpedoes you ever saw. Any ane could see that they were going to hit the bull’s-eye. And in just a few seconds, sure enough, they got us. “Well, I went below to get my gear together and roll up a new uniform I'd bought a while before. Funny things a man does at a time like that. I shifted into some old slops so I wouldn’t look like an officer and get picked up for a prisoner. I remember I spread the uni- form I was wearing over a coat-hanger and hung it up in the clothes press. “Going on deck again, I happened to pass a water cooler, so I laid in about six glasses of " water against what I might get in the boats, and then I shoved along. “Things on ship were going fine. Not any fuss. The sea was calm and it looked as if 300 life rafts had gone overboard already. The ship’s company just hove them over the side, singing ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ ’ “I went over after a while into a boat that the ensign had charge of under the after falls, The patent detaching gear on the fall hooks was jammed, I remember. A bunch of soldiers went over with us into that boat; all were step- ping out a bit, because the Lincoln was settling fast. “THEN the submarine came along and the skipper hailed us. He had one prisoner, but he wanted the skipper of the Lincoln.. Of course, we all said we didn't know anything except that the Old Man had gone down with the ship—which he hadn’t, but the sub fell for it. After he gave us a few courses for the beach he shoved along about his business and we were picked up later by two of our destroyers. “But you know it wasn't the sub that I re- member best nor the two destroyers showing up. No, sit, it was what happened just before we had pulled clear of the ship in cur boat before she went down. “We were lying off but close aboard the Lincoln when three Negro messboys came along the deck and the captain's steward with them. All four had lifebelts on, so, of course, we sung out for them to jump. Wasn't anything to it then, because the Lincoln’s stern was just about awash, and anyway, as I say, the whole sea was covered with life rafts. “The three boys jumped and we hauled them aboard, but the captain's steward wouldn’'t come. “ ‘Whar’s the captain?’ he hollered. _“We yelled back that it was all right about the captain, he’'d better jump himself. We knew the captain was off, but we couldn’t make that steward believe it. He hadn't seen him himself. Half a dozen times. I guess, we ordered him overboard, but he wouldn't come. Every time he refused. “‘No, sir,’ I can still hear that fellow say, ‘Ah'm gwine for'd an’ see where the captain's at. He may need me.’ “The brave fellow started for the captain’s cabin. All the time we kept hollering at him that he was safe. And then, when he was about 10 feet up the deck, the sea came over her stern and headed for an afterhold that had its cover off. The steward was abreast of that hold when the sea caught him. I say he was a man, that steward.” (Copyrieht, 1930.) Cattle Tick Losing Ground THE cattle fever tick is being driven farther and farther back into its strongholds in Louisiana and Arkansas, but the campaign in these sections is expected to give scientists a real battle. The quarantine laid down by the Federal Government in 1906 covered 14 South- ern States and one Pacific State. The menace. of the parasite and the fever became so great at that time that drastic steps were found necessary in order that its spread might be checked. Intensive work, often under the greatest local opposition, has gone on steadily since that time, until now only five of the orig- inal 15 States are still under quarantine. Mississippi, one of the five remaining, has been forging ahead rapidly, and it is expected that the remaining 17 counties under quarantine will be freed by Fall. The work being carried on in Texas and Florida gives promise of free- ing those States in full before long. The last remaining strongholds now-—areas in which no effort has been made to eradicate the tick—are 15 counties in Arkansas and 42 parishes in Louisiana. Just what future steps will be taken in these localities are not indi- cated at present. Study Europe’s Wheat Taste. WORKING on the principle that the best way to find a market for a product is to find what the market likes best, the United States Bureau of ‘Agricultural Economics is con- ducting a study of wheat mixing, blending, milling and baking in Europe. It is believed that as a result of the survey being carried on it will be possible to stimulate the sale of American wheat in Europe through the prepara- tion 6f a product which meets the European taste. (Here he gave an imitation of each noise, the former high pitched, the latter, low and gut- tural.) Did you ever see gorillas beat their chests? Yes, often, when they got my wind. How small a gorilla have you ever seen? Very small—so long (measuring 15 inches) riding upon its mother’s neck. Did you ever see a gorilla attack or kill & man? No, I never saw one, but I heard of one who killed a man Bzaz who came up on east of Mikeno by a banana grove to cut bamboo. He never came back to shamba and other natives went to look for him and found him all trampled on and many gorilla tracks all around his body. (This is simiiar to the story Mr. Akeley heard and is apparently the tradi- tional story of this region). Did a gorilla ever charge you while hunting or trapping? No. Have you hunted gorilla with many white men? Twice before Mr. Akeley came in 1921 and five times since. I caught with my own hands one of the little gorillas taken by Burbridge. Did you ever see gorillas in a tree? Only once in all my hunting experience, and that was with Mr. Akeley in 1921, when he took his motion pictures of them. (He here described exactly as Mr. Akeley describes and as his film shows, the position and action of the- gorillas.) Have you ever seen a gorilla in a tree since? Never, but that one time. Have you even seen a gorilla nest in a tree? No. I have seen many chimpanzee nests in trees, but never a gorilla nest. _IE then related the story of my husband’s gorilla hunting, and told the details of where and how he shot and skinned them— in very steep places, of how the old gorilla almost rolled over them, telling all details with exactness. When I remarked on this he said, “Why, of course, I tell the truth; I tell things just as I see them.” Nearly all of these questions were asked at least twice under different conditions and his answers were invariably the same. Leopards, which are very numerous in the Kivu volcanoes, are said to attack young gorillas. Because of their depredations upon the gorilla, the Belgian Government encourages the killing of leopards in the Parc National Albert. With this single exception, the great ape who journeys without haste over the Birunga slopes has no enemies in the animal world. Herds of elephant and buffalo travel the same mountain trails as the gorilla, and feed side by side with them, and, according to the natives as well as from our own observa- tions, there is peace between them. - (Copyright, 1930.) IV here Comdr. Byrd Will Fly N ext. Continued from Third Page Navy Departments, the Senate and House; of conferring with officers of the National Geo- graphic Society and the American Geo- graphic Society; of being welcomed to Phila- delphia, New York City, Albany, Brooklyn, and Boston, and of closing up the affairs of his South Pole expedition, he then expects to “retire” once more. As usual, it will be active retirement, living with his joyous children while trying to get his Antarctic book ready for publication in the Fall. AP'I'ER two months of such retirement, he will begin a series of lectures that will take him from the Atlantic to the Pacific. By February Admiral Byrd's lecture season will be over, and he will return to the more thrilling life of an explorer. Will he go to the heart of Sahara, the Kali- hari Desert of Southwest Africa, the deserts of Central-Western Australia, the Arctric tundras of Argentine pampas? Will he fly over Mt. Everest, or possibly over the mystery mountains of inner Asia, which Dr. Rock reports to be higher than Everest? Will he plan co-operative exploring, using his rare gifts as an executive to finance and smooth the way for detail-work- ing scientists? Vilhjalmur Stefansson has pointed eut that the goal of the modern explorer must be a well advertised place, The explorer seldom has money enough to finance his own expeditions; even the biggest scientific institutions have their difficulties. In the main, funds are secured by the man who gets the most publicity. And, as every one knows, news publicity goes to those well adver- tised people, places and things in which the public already has an absorbing interest before the expedition starts. “Amundsen’s greatest accomplishment on his crossing of the polar seas,” says Mr. Stefansson, “was his flight over the Pole of Inaccessibility, the mcst remote spot of the unexplored Arctic. Newspapers told the world that the Norge had flown over the North Pole, which had already been attained years before by Peary and a scant few hours before by Byrd. Not one mentioned the fact that Amundsen was the first to fly over the most inaccessible part of the Arctic.” It cost Columbus $2,116 to discover America, but it cost two great American newspapers $200,000 just for a single dispatch from the North Pole, or about $2,000 a word for the mes- sage which Amundsen sent from the apex of the earth on May 12, 1926, as the Norge slid like a huge silver cigar over the frozen seas. Byrd’s quick flight over the North Pole cost him $140,000. Of that amount $40,000 was still in red ink on his books when he returned to America. Eventually he paid off that deficit, and then undertook an even greater one when he organ- ized his South Pole expedition, costing more than a million dollars. Admiral Byrd has ad- mitted that, as a result of this expensive Ant- arctic ‘expedition, he expects to be in debt the rest ‘of his life “These figures,” says Comdr. Fitzhugh Green, a close friend of Byrd and himself an Arctic explorer, “mark the passing of the‘explorer-—n_ man of good digestion, with a strong heart, and a burning aspiration to get somewhere. Peary's formula for it was ‘two pounds of pemmican and a half gallon of tea a day,’ on which he declared an explorer could go around the world in any direction.” Exploration today demands a large staff, many receiving fairly large salaries. The public insists that every care be taken for their come- fort and every precaution for their safety. It is becoming more and more a matier of high- powered organization rather than individual initiative. “A fully equipped expedition to either pole, Tibet, Central Africa, or the head waters of the Orinoco,” continues Comdr. Green, costs from $100,000 to $500,000, depending on the size of the ship and the number of men. An expe= dition without private ship and first-rate scientists representing the major departments of research can scarcely claim wide public at= tention. It lacks dramatic appeal.” Six years remain of the period Byrd allotted to exploration. Probably no decision has yet been made, but in Byrd's busy brain some plan even now is surely coming to maturity. B (Copyright, 1930.) Growth of Wool Studicd. WHEN the wool expert decides to study the growth of wool he geces at it in a way which limits all uncertainty and guesswork. The rate of growth of the wool and its fineness have been believed subject to various eonditions within the control of the wocl raiser, and in order that this may be determined and the ideal conditions for wool production developed, ex= perts working under the Department of Agrie culture hit upon a novel scheme for watching the growth of the wool. At the time of sheare ing the test animals a tuft was tied close to the skin, and every 28 days thereafter a new tie was made at the skin. When a year had elapsed a tuft of wool with 13 ties in it was ready for study. It was found that the growth of the wool, both in length and diameter, was greatest in the Summer and Fall, while in the midwinter it was least. Any condition, such as undernourishment, severe weather, and so on, which might affect the vitality and the thriftiness of the sheep was found to have a corresponding effect upon the wool. Fruit Tree Pruning Needed. MUCH as the home gardener hates to cut off the branches of his fruit trees, which at their best seem to grow so slowly, some ampue tation is necessary for the future of the tree. Limbs which have a tendency toward the center of the tree should be cut cut, as well as those which grow at odd angles and rub against others. The rubbing of branches will result in the death of both, while ingrowing branches will result in trees which will suffer later from lack of surishine at the main !-ran of the trees. Therefore, much as it may hurt, as all pruning seems to hurt, the home gardener must get out his knife or pruning saw and go to work if he wants real satisfactory results in the future,