HUGE SHOVEL CAN LIFT CAR OF COALThe largest shovel in the world, with a scoop big enough to pick up an automobile, is the subject of our cover illustration. It is in use at the Fidelity mine of the United Electric Coal Co., near DuQuon, Ill., the greatest coal-stripping enterprise in the world.Electrically operated, the shovel obtains its power from a cable that trails behind. It was made by the Marion Steam Shovel Co. and is powered with General Electric equipment.Although the dipper capacity is rated 15 cubic yards, it is estimated that the dipper will hold 20 cubic yards, heaping measure. O...

MUDDY MISSISSIPPI YIELDS PEARLS THAT RIVAL ORIENT'SPearls we usually picture as coming up from limpid greenish tropical sea depths, in the fingers (or perhaps the mouth) of a swimming brown-skinned native. It seems a bit of a comedown to think of pearls coming out of the prosaic waters of the muddy Mississippi—and as a mere adjunct of the button industry, at that.Yet so it is. The $3,000 handful of pearls photographed for the cover of this issue of the Science News Letter by Cornelia Clarke was taken out of river mussel shells somewhere near Muscatine, Iowa. Every mussel fisherman spends his t...

THOMAS H. MORGAN GIVEN NEW HONORThe American Association for the Advancement of Science has chosen Dr. Thomas Hunt Morgan to succeed the eminent physicist Dr. Robert Andrews Millikan as president. To many the name of Thomas Hunt Morgan is synonymous with the modern theory of the gene as the determining factor in heredity. Upon his observations is based the work of many other experimental biologists.MYTHS HINT INDIANS KNEW MAMMOTHSDid the early Indians on this continent know the great hairy mammoth, monstrous survivor of the Ice Age? Did they hunt him for his meat and hide and ivory?Prof. Willi...

BUTTERFLIES, "WINGED JEWELS," ARE GEMS AT START OF LIFEButterflies have been called "winged jewels" so often that the conceit can hardly be considered poetic any longer. Yet the appropriateness of the old metaphor receives new confirmation when we look at the egg of a butterfly, which represents the humblest beginning of its career of beauty. For this tiny nursery, whence the young caterpillar, unwinged and unlovely, will presently creep, is itself exquisitely jewel-like in its proportions and symmetry and in its delicate sculpturing.Seen in magnification, without any of our common grosser obj...

PILTDOWN MAN EARLIEST HUMANBEINGThe ape-man of Darwin was read out ofman's family tree and the dawn-man ofSussex, older than 1,250,000 years, waselevated to the position of man's progenitorby Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, president ofthe American Museum of Natural History,New York.A new picture was painted by Dr. Osborn ofthe earliest known creature who can becalled human.His size of brain was equal to the minimum of that of the living Veddahs,Papuans, and native Australians, the most primitive living men. Heskillfully made implements and weapons of flint and bone and for killinganimals perfecte...

YOUTH AND THE SEA"Captain Sylvia," aged 6 weeks, and hermother, Mrs. J.E. Williamson upon the cover ofthis week's issue look at a strange world full offishes, corals, sharks, morays, and otherdenizens of the deep. The youthful scientist,symbolic of science itself and its aspirations,was a member of the Field Museum-WilliamsonUndersea Expedition to the Bahama Islands,which brought back tons of corals collected aftercruising many miles under the sea.SCIENCE STRIDES FORWARD DURING 1929In the air, under sea, and on the surface of the earth, man's searchings intothe mysteries of the universe have p...

GENERATOR LOAD DIVIDED FOR BETTER OPERATIONWithout the pretty girl, this massive stationary winding of a turbine electric generator might appear to be the size of a spool of thread. But contrast emphasizes the machine’s 83,300 kilovolt-ampere capacity.The black arms are heavily insulated butt-ends of copper bars in which electricity is to be generated. They are sunk in grooves in the inner surface of the stator frame.Within the core of the stator, where the young lady is seated, the energized rotor will spin at 1800 revolutions per minute. Current it induces in the stator is to be used for all...

FLYING ARCHAEOLOGIST MAKES UNIQUE PICTURE RECORDFlying over the far-flung ruins of civilizations, which his own scientific institution is busily exploring from the ground, Charles Breasted of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has obtained 12,000 feet of unique motion picture film, showing the work of "the largest archaeological research organization in the world."Mr. Breasted, who has just returned from his magic-carpet flight over the broken magnificence of old Babylonia, Persia, Egypt, and other Near Eastern countries, told of his experiences recently in a radio talk under ...

GENES, ONCE HYPOTHETICAL, NOW SEEN AND PHOTOGRAPHEDGenes, the ultimate units in heredity, have been seen and photographed. So declares Dr. John Belling, biologist on the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.Genes have hitherto been dealt with as hypothetical entities by biologists, because no one has ever actually seen them. They were like the atoms and electrons that make up matter: Physicists treat them as actually existing things, though it is impossible to given them visual demonstration. But now Dr. Belling believes that he has brought the genes out of their invisibility.All li...

DOVE ORCHID MAKES FITTING FLOWER FOR WHITSUNDAYSunday, May 15, is the Feast of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, when many of the churches commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit. In the lands of tropical America, where delicate orchids can be had by anybody, many an imaginative Latin will mingle poetry with his piety as he looks upon the Dove Orchid, with the little brooding figure of the symbolic bird hovering at its heart. Throughout the warm countries where it grows, this exquisite blossom is known as the "Flower of the Holy Ghost."The "dove" and the two structures on either side, which might b...