The American School of the Air

New Horizons: Wonders of the South Seas

Date: Apr 26 1939


<span style="text-decoration: underline">CAST</span>:<br />
ANNOUNCER, John Reed King<br />
DR. ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS, famous explorer<br />
MRS. MARY SHERIDAN FAHNESTOCK, explorer, grandmother<br />
DR. ROY W. MINER, explorer<br />
MISS HELEN LYON, young womanSOUND: Trumpet call.

ANNOUNCER: Columbia's American School of the Air, with the cooperation of the American Museum of Natural History and the National Education Association presents New Horizons, a program of adventure, discovery, and exploration which comes to you from the director's room in the American Museum, with Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, famous explorer, as your host and commentator....Today we sail for the South Pacific, to those fabled islands of spice and pearls of the South Seas...where the rolling swells of the Pacific throw their sprays on sunlit shores and where strange and interesting forms of animal life are found on land and in the sea....So...all aboard....Pull the whistle cord....

SOUND: One long blast of steamship whistle, followed by three short blasts.

ANNOUNCER: Let go aft....Let go forward....Start the engines....

SOUND: Engine room telegraph bell rings, followed by pulsation of ship's engines, followed by three sharp blasts of whistle. Continue engine.

ANNOUNCER: Our first port of call as we leave Columbia's downtown studios is the American Museum of Natural History, where we will pick up Dr. Andrews and his guests....Ahoy there, Dr. Andrews!...Are you ready to come aboard and take command?

(Switch to museum)

DR. ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS: Yes, Mr. King. Here we are all set for our South Sea journey. And as we get under way, I want to introduce my fellow travelers....I know you will be glad to meet Mrs. Mary Sheridan Fahnestock, who spent a whole year exploring the South Seas with her two sons, Bruce and Sheridan Fahnestock, aboard a sturdy little 65-foot schooner....That must have been an exciting adventure, Mrs. Fahnestock.

MRS. MARY SHERIDAN FAHNESTOCK: Of course it was, Dr. Andrews. Here I am...old enough to be a grandmother....As a matter of fact, I am a grandmother...and yet I ran away to sea at the age of fifty. But of course...my adventures in the South Seas were nothing compared to those of Dr. Miner.

DR. ROY W. MINER: Well, I don't know about that, Mrs. Fahnestock. From what I hear, you had some rather interesting experiences.

ANDREWS: Yes...and we are all looking forward to hearing about them. But before we go on, let me present Dr. Roy W. Miner, who is also with us today. As an explorer, Dr. Miner is in a class by himself, for during the past 25 years he has gone to the bottom of the sea in quest of new horizons for science, including the pearl lagoons in the South Sea Islands....Another member of our party is Miss Helen Lyon, a frequent shipmate on our radio journeys for New Horizons....And now that everything is shipshape and Bristol fashion, let us set our course for the Island of Tongareva, famous throughout the world for its pearl fisheries....Full speed ahead!

SOUND: Ringing of engine telegraph, followed by three sharp blasts on whistle. Bring up engines to full volume and fade out.

MISS HELEN LYON: (On cue) I hope we have smooth sailing, Mrs. Fahnestock, and that we don't run into any storms.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Oh, there are worse things than storms on the Pacific, Miss Lyon. When we were on our way to Tongareva, we ran into doldrums.

ANDREWS: You mean dead calm weather, with not a breeze stirring?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: That's right, Dr. Andrews....For seven solid days there wasn't enough wind to make a candle flicker.

ANDREWS: But didn't you have an engine...some sort of a motor aboard the ship?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Oh, yes...we had a brand new Diesel engine. We started it when the wind died down. For a few hours it ran like a watch, and we rushed through the water at fine speed. Then the engine began to throw oil, and finally it gave a queer snapping sound and stopped dead.

LYON: My...right in mid-ocean!

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Yes...and the ocean was as smooth as a mirror...not a ripple on it anywhere. Our sails were useless in a case like that. Our motor wouldn't tick. There was only one thing to do...and that was to sit down and wait.

LYON: But weren't you worried, Mrs. Fahnestock?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: No....There wasn't anything to be worried about. It was just a case of watchful waiting for the wind.

ANDREWS: But the heat...you must have been very uncomfortable.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Yes, Dr. Andrews,...the days were unbearable. The sun shone from six to six...twelve solid hours of blazing sun and never a cloud in the sky....Day after day for seven solid days....

MINER: I've heard about ships and sailors being becalmed at sea by doldrums for so long that they ran out of water.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: True, Dr. Miner, but nothing like that happened to us. We had plenty of water. It was nice and warm too...85 degrees...and the water in the ocean was 85 degrees.

LYON: You could have taken a nice warm bath!

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Oh, we doused ourselves with sea water, but we didn't go swimming.

ANDREWS: Too many sharks, I presume.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Exactly. They were cruising all around us....The only ripples on the sea were caused by their fins cutting through the water.

MINER: But time must have been hanging heavily on your hands, Mrs. Fahnestock.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: No, Dr. Miner, we didn't have a dull moment. Sure, our backs were blistered...our lips were swollen...and our faces were parched by the sun. But when we weren't thinking of the heat and talking about the lack of wind, we would discuss the thrills that awaited us at Tongareva, where my two sons were planning to dive for pearls.

ANDREWS: And when the wind finally did come, you headed straight for the pearl lagoons.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Yes, on a good spanking breeze.

LYON: Did you go diving for pearls yourself, Mrs. Fahnestock?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: No...I wanted to, but somehow I didn't work up enough courage to do it. I spent most of each day sitting on the deck of the Director...that's the name of the schooner...opening oysters. I opened enough oysters to start a string of oyster bars from New York to San Francisco.

MINER: And opening those pearl oysters is no easy job, Miss Lyon.

LYON: Why not, Dr. Miner?

MINER: Because pearl oysters are much heavier and much larger than the oysters we have here at home. Some of them weigh 8 pounds.

LYON: Goodness, you wouldn't need many of those for oyster stew! But tell me, Mrs. Fahnestock, did you find any pearls in them?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Yes...we found a great many....None perfect or very large, but they were all beautiful to me. All day long the native divers and my sons would dump big piles of oysters in front of me.

ANDREWS: It must have been hard work, Mrs. Fahnestock.

LYON: And hard on the hands....

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: It was all of that...but at the same time, it was a great thrill to slip in the knife, open the shell...

ANDREWS: And peek for a pearl.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Yes...and every time I found one, I just...I just...well, I just gloated with joy. What broke my heart, though, was that every night the oysters I hadn't been able to open were thrown back into the sea, and I would lie awake nights telling myself that the pride of all pearls might have been among them!

LYON: But why did you throw the oysters back into the sea unopened?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Because oysters spoil very fast, Miss Lyon, and they have a very unpleasant odor.

LYON: Oh...of course! But what about sharks?...Are there no sharks in those waters?

MINER: Yes, Miss Lyon. There are plenty of sharks there.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: And they made me cold with terror. But my sons weren't afraid of the sharks, and the native divers paid hardly any attention to them. Before we began diving for pearls, Sheridan, one of my sons, asked a native diver, "What do you do about sharks?" And the native replied, "Take rag, shake rag, small shark he go. Big shark, you go top quick."

LYON: I'd go "top quick" for even a small shark!

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: I'm afraid I feel the same way about it.

ANDREWS: But Dr. Miner here has met sharks face to face on the bottom of the sea.

LYON: Really, Dr. Miner? Big sharks?

MINER: Well...on one occasion, four sharks paid me a visit while I was taking motion pictures under the water.

LYON: Goodness...did you "shaky rag" or "go top quick"?

MINER: (Laughing) No...I just shooed them off.

LYON: Shooed them off!...But how do you shoo a shark?

MINER: It was fairly simple that time. This is what happened. I was taking motion pictures of coral formations at the bottom of a submarine gorge shaped like a horseshoe. Midway at the opening of the horseshoe there stood a column of coral that almost reached the surface.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: I think I remember that particular place, and it certainly presents a beautiful picture, Dr. Miner...almost like a stage setting.

MINER: Right, Mrs. Fahnestock. And suddenly four actors who were not in the cast made their entrance on that stage. Four large sharks came in from the left and began to edge toward me.

ANDREWS: And you were standing at the bottom of the horseshoe....Seems to me those sharks had you trapped.

MINER: That's what it looked like to me, Dr. Andrews. I waited for them to leave, but they didn't.

ANDREWS: And you couldn't get out.

LYON: I should think you were petrified.

MINER: Yes...I began to get a little nervous.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: But why didn't you go up, Dr. Miner?

MINER: I thought of that. But then it occurred to me that if I started to climb up the ladder I would sway back and forth like bait on a line....

ANDREWS: (Laughing) And you didn't want to look like a piece of shark bait....

MINER: No, indeed. Meanwhile, the sharks were edging closer, so I decided to do what the natives do...namely...shoo them off.

LYON: And how did you do that?

MINER: Well, Miss Lyon, I plunged toward the four sharks and at the same time waved my arms in a threatening manner...and lo and behold...the trick worked! The four sharks turned about quickly and swam out of sight.

ANDREWS: I should mark that down as a very thrilling experience, Dr. Miner. But...suppose you tell us just how you conduct your diving operations.

LYON: Yes, how does it feel to go exploring on the bottom of the sea?

MINER: Well...to start with, you get all wet.

LYON: You mean your diving suit gets wet.

MINER: No, I mean my bathing suit. For in tropical waters, where the water is warm, you don't need a diving suit.

ANDREWS: Just how deep do you go below the surface, Dr. Miner?

MINER: Oh, usually from 25 to 30 feet.

ANDREWS: And the pressure of the water is not too great for comfort?

MINER: No, you get quite used to it.

ANDREWS: But tell us something about your equipment.

MINER: Well, as you know, it is fairly simple. It consists of a brass diving helmet with an air hose and windows. This helmet fits over your head and rests on your shoulders.

LYON: How much does the helmet weigh?

MINER: Oh...about 65 pounds...just enough to help you stay on the bottom.

LYON: But that's a lot of weight to carry around.

MINER: No, on the bottom of the ocean that copper helmet feels as light as a straw hat. Roaming around on the bottom of the sea is really more like floating than walking...a very pleasant sensation...and thrilling, too.

LYON: Thrilling in what way, Dr. Miner? Because it is dangerous?

MINER: Dangerous? No, Miss Lyon, because it is beautiful.

ANDREWS: You see, Helen, unless you have seen it with your own eyes you can't imagine the fragile, almost dreamlike beauty of a coral reef. But say, Dr. Miner, why not take us on a make-believe diving trip to the bottom of a pearl lagoon and show us what we would see?

MINER: Well, first of all, the water is just as clear as crystal. And it melts into the distance like a pearly blue fog. Rising all around us are strange coral skyscrapers. Some steepled, some terraced, some domelike, some jagged....

ANDREWS: It looks almost like the fantastic sky line of a magic city from a book of fairy tales.

MINER: And it is a world of many colors ranging from soft rose to light blue, from rich purple to pale green, and in the clifflike walls are deep, mysterious caverns. And in the depths of those caverns we see wavering light beams dancing down from concealed openings in shafts of weird, luminous blue.

LYON: No wonder you compare a coral reef with a fairyland! You almost have me looking for Little Red Riding Hood!

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Or Mr. Shark...the Big Bad Wolf!

MINER: (Laughing) Well, some sharks are sheep in wolves' clothing.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Not always, Dr. Miner. I saw two native boys in Tongareva who had been attacked by sharks. One had a crippled leg, and the other had a badly maimed arm.

MINER: That is quite true. Many sharks are dangerous, but there are other dangerous inhabitants of the pearl reefs to be reckoned with.

LYON: But what could be more dangerous than a shark, Dr. Miner?

MINER: Well, Miss Lyon, there are such things as octopuses, poisonous sea stars, moray eels, and mantrap clams.

LYON: Mantrap clams?...Dr. Andrews, I think Dr. Miner must be joking!

ANDREWS: No, he isn't, Helen. The mantrap clam can be a very bad customer.

LYON: The only bad clams I ever met were on the half shell!

MINER: Quite so, Miss Lyon, but the mantrap clam is no ordinary clam.

ANDREWS: No, indeed, I knew the mantrap clam would be dragged into the conversation, so I brought a copy of Natural History magazine along with some pictures of the mantrap clam. Here...look....Here it is....

LYON: You mean to say that that big thing is a clam?

ANDREWS: Exactly, Helen.

LYON: My, my! I wish I had a picture of that!

ANDREWS: You can have one.

LYON: Fine....Say, I think a lot of those who listen to this story would like to have a picture, too.

ANDREWS: All right, we can arrange that. It would be a nice souvenir.

LYON: But how would they get it?

ANDREWS: Oh, just send us their names and addresses, and we'll see that they get one. And after the broadcast, I'll show you a mantrap clam right here in the Museum, Helen. It comes from Australia, and it's 3 1/2 feet long, 2 feet wide, and weighs over 500 pounds.

MINER: Of course, those at Tongareva are not quite as large, but even then they are dangerous enough to pearl divers.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Yes. As a matter of fact, the mantrap clam is a deadly menace, and the pearl divers are very much afraid of it.

LYON: But I don't understand, Dr. Andrews. How can a clam be dangerous?

ANDREWS: Well, you see, Helen, these clams lie partly buried in the ocean floor, with their two shells apart. But if a diver should be unlucky enough to stick a hand or foot between their shells, they close with the speed of a trap. There is no way of plying those shells apart. The only road to safety lies in cutting off the hand or the foot of the diver who is held in their viselike grip. It's either that or drowning.

LYON: Why...how horrible! But what about octopuses? They are dangerous too, aren't they, Dr. Miner?

MINER: There are plenty of reports to that effect, but none of them ever tackled me. My most interesting encounter was absolutely negative. One day I was working near a coral cavern when suddenly a tapering, serpentlike tentacle shot out...then another...and another..all advancing in coils that became thicker and more formidable. Presently the bulb-shaped body and baleful eyes of an octopus came into view.

LYON: And what did you do?

MINER: To tell the truth, I didn't do anything. I was so spellbound by interest that I couldn't move. I just watched the octopus as it hung half-suspended from the edge of its cave. Then, without effort, it darted out into the water right past me and settled down in another crevice, from which it kept watching me with cold malice.

ANDREWS: And it didn't bother you at all?

MINER: No...not beyond giving me a wave or two of goose flesh.

LYON: Well, Dr. Miner, you can keep your fairyland at the bottom of the sea so far as I'm concerned....I don't blame you for not going pearl diving, Mrs. Fahnestock.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Well, that's the way I looked at it.

LYON: But, say, Dr. Miner, what kind of diving equipment do the native pearl divers use?

MINER: Oh, all a native pearl diver needs is a boat, a 30-pound stone, 50 feet of water, and an oyster bed with pearls.

LYON: But wait a minute...a 30-pound stone...what's the stone for?

MINER: There's a good reason for that. The weight of the stone helps to pull the diver toward the bottom. Not only that, but if you go down carefully and quickly, without waving your arms, the oysters keep their shells open, and in that way you get a peek at your pearl before you pick it.

ANDREWS: But, Helen, don't think for a moment that pearls come easily.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: I should say not. We opened shells for one whole week before we got a single pearl.

ANDREWS: But hold on there! Pearl diving isn't just done for pearls alone.

LYON: But what, then?

ANDREWS: Well, let's see. Look at these little pearl buttons on my shirt sleeves. They look very unromantic...but if you could see where they started you'd be tied up in knots of excitement, because the shells of pearl oysters become pearl buttons and other things. And those shells have a yearly market almost as big as that of pearls. Isn't that true, Dr. Miner?

MINER: Right you are. And while pearl diving is a shell game, it is a game that is being played for very high stakes. If you strike it rich, you can live on the fat of the land.

ANDREWS: But if you run into trouble, you are apt to find a swift and painful exit.

LYON: Say, Dr. Miner....Did you do any fishing on your expedition to the South Seas?

MINER: Yes, plenty. We caught fish on hooks, with nets, and with dynamite.

LYON: Dynamite! That's a new one! How did you do it?

MINER: Oh, we had a gadget we called a bang-bang. It is a long bamboo pole with two dynamite caps attached to the end. We would probe around on the bottom of the sea with these poles, and when we saw a fish we wanted we would bring the pole within a foot of it, explode the dynamite, and stun the fish.

ANDREWS: (Laughing) That's quite an idea. And speaking about dynamiting fish, that reminds me of an experience I had some years ago in the South Seas when I was a member of the Albatross expedition sent out by the United States Bureau of Fisheries to investigate the small islands of the East Indies.

MINER: Yes, I remember the Albatross very well. She was the most famous deep-sea exploring ship of her time.

ANDREWS: Right you are. And, among other things, we dynamited fish on coral reefs. And, by Jove, that was always exciting! It was there I found the most absent-minded man in the world...at least, so far as I know.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: Absent-minded? How?

ANDREWS: Well, Mrs. Fahnestock, let me tell you what happened. When we dynamited for fish, one of the members of the crew was in the habit of tying two or three sticks of dynamite together. Then he would light the fuse and throw the dynamite 40 or 50 feet away into the sea. One day he was in a boat with two other sailors. He tied some sticks of dynamite together, lit the fuse, and what do you think he did?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: I have no idea, Dr. Andrews.

ANDREWS: Well, he blew out the match and threw it in the water, and then, by golly, he dropped the dynamite with the sizzling fuse in the bottom of the boat.

LYON: My goodness, he certainly was absent-minded!

ANDREWS: I shouted at him from my boat: "Hey...pick up that dynamite or jump!" He looked at me, and I shall never forget his expression. His first impulse was to jump over the side from the spitting fuse, but in another second he leaned over, grabbed the dynamite, and threw it as far as he could...and he was just in time. The dynamite exploded in mid-air, but it didn't do any damage.

MINER: I should think the men in that boat must have felt pretty sick.

ANDREWS: Sick? They were so wobbly they could hardly row back to the ship and climb up the sea ladder! They were actually scared out of their wits.

LYON: Whew! That certainly was a narrow escape. But say, Dr. Miner, before we get away from pearls, I would like to know how pearls are made.

ANDREWS: That's a good question, Helen, and I'm glad you brought it up. Tell us how pearls are made, Dr. Miner.

MINER: Well, Miss Lyon, it all starts when a grain of sand or a tiny parasite slips inside an oyster's shell. Now, oysters are very finicky about their shells. They want to keep them smooth, and when something irritating gets between the oyster and his shell, the oyster is very, very annoyed.

LYON: Yes, I can understand that!

MINER: Well, the oyster can't clean house by sweeping the sand out, and since it can't get rid of the invader, it covers it up by secreting a pearly substance over it. This substance is hard and glossy, and it is covered by another layer and another layer, and so on, until a pearl is formed.

LYON: That's very interesting, Dr. Miner. Then pearls really come into existence by annoying the oysters.

ANDREWS: It's rather odd to realize that pearls are created that way.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: All I can say is that it is a shame that more oysters aren't annoyed!

MINER: (Laughing) Maybe so. After all, only about one oyster in a thousand produces a pearl.

LYON: I heard a rhyme in Honolulu about pearls that went like this:

"A little pearl may please a girl,
But it sure annoys an oyster."

ALL: (Laugh)

MINER: But, Dr. Andrews...so far you have been mainly on the listening end of this discussion, and it seems to me that you ought to tell us something about your experiences and observations in the South Sea Islands during the cruise of the Albatross.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: That's a good idea, Dr. Miner.

LYON: I should say so. Let's hear more about it, Dr. Andrews.

ANDREWS: It certainly looks like you folks are ganging up on me. Well, anyway, I can truthfully state that some of my happiest memories and most wonderful experiences date back to the cruise of the Albatross. I learned many things on that expedition. But I think I can say that my most valuable acquisition was the lesson in patience I was taught in the jungles of Borneo.

LYON: A lesson in patience?

ANDREWS: Yes, I learned that it doesn't pay to lose your temper.

LYON: And you learned that lesson in the silence of the jungle.

ANDREWS: Silence of the jungle!...Say, my first impression of the jungle was one of sound rather than one of sight. Millions of insects and thousands of birds and monkeys filled the air with such a medley of noise that my eardrums ached. The jungle was a thick wall of giant trees stretching up and up almost to the clouds. The king tree dominates the Borneo jungle. It grows to a height of more than 200 feet. All of these trees are hung with a tangled network of vines and creepers, and it was impossible to move except by cutting a path with a machete.

MINER: I know, Dr. Andrews, and that's mighty slow going.

ANDREWS: Well, one day I lost my patience. I tried to break through an opening because I wanted to make time. But in two minutes I was caught in a web of vines and thorns. Then I lost my temper. I tried to rush forward. That didn't work. Next I tried to back out. That didn't work either. The more I pulled, the deeper went the thorns into my skin and the tighter held the vines.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: But how did you finally get out, Dr. Andrews?

ANDREWS: Oh, when my native boy caught up with me, he cut me loose. My clothes were in rags, and I was streaming with blood from wounds inflicted by the thorns. I was as mad as a hornet, and I didn't feel any better when my boy howled with glee. Finally he said, "Master better learn not get angry. Go slow...make time fast and use machete." He was right.

MINER: Yes, the jungle is no place for an impatient man.

ANDREWS: I found that out, Dr. Miner. But I must admit that I came doggone near losing my temper a short time later aboard the ship.

LYON: Why?

ANDREWS: Oh, among other things, after a lot of trouble, I had collected a number of birds, all new to my collection. I took them aboard the Albatross and spent the whole evening...until long after midnight...skinning the birds. It was hard, hot, and dull work. As I skinned each bird, I tossed it into a box that stood behind my chair. At last they were all done. I was half asleep and turned around to cover the box when...much to my amazement...the box was empty! Not a bird in it! Even the last one I had skinned was gone.

LYON: All the birds were gone?

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: But what happened to them, Dr. Andrews?

ANDREWS: I'm just coming to that. In the open doorway of my cabin stood Admiral Dewey, the ship's mascot, a big, handsome goat...and that goat had eaten every one of my bird skins!

MINER: (Laughing) That's when the goat got your goat!

ANDREWS: Oh, I was furious! For two cents I could have wrung that goat's neck. But I didn't dare touch him, because he was the pet of everyone aboard, and Admiral Dewey could do no wrong.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: That was a disheartening experience. But tell me, Dr. Andrews, did you ever have any trouble with natives?

ANDREWS: Only once, Mrs. Fahnestock. And that was on the island of Buru. It is a large, heavily wooded island which, up to then, had been only partially explored. Together with a member of the crew, I went ashore to take a look-see. As we made our way inland, we found three or four Malay villages but not a soul in them. Fires were left smoking and food half eaten.

MINER: I should say that was a very bad sign.

ANDREWS: Right you are. We couldn't see a single native, and still we had the uncomfortable feeling that hostile eyes were watching us from the blackness of the jungle which closed in all around us. Frankly, we expected to feel an arrow or a spear in our backs at any moment. We had our guns ready and were prepared to shoot on sight. I knew enough about Malay habits to be very cautious on the way back. We watched the trail very carefully, and it produced just what we had expected.

LYON: What, Dr. Andrews?

ANDREWS: Oh, poison bamboo sticks with needle-sharp points very cleverly concealed in the undergrowth along the path.

MINER: Yes, that's an old Malay custom.

LYON: Is that poison very deadly?

ANDREWS: Very deadly, Helen. One deep gash would have doomed us to pushing clouds for all eternity.

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: But, Dr. Andrews, with the path all blocked with poison barbs, how did you get out?

ANDREWS: We broke away from the path, Mrs. Fahnestock. Cut through the jungle to a stream some distance on our left and waded down the stream until we reached the safety of the open beach.

LYON: But, Dr. Andrews, some time ago you told me about an experience you had with bats.

ANDREWS: Oh yes. One day, in the late afternoon, we dropped anchor off a tiny coral island. I went ashore, and from the edge of the jungle I saw half a dozen low trees which seemed to bear a strange, black fruit. This fruit hung in masses from every branch. It moved. It was alive!

MRS. FAHNESTOCK: But I don't understand....How can fruit be alive, Dr. Andrews?

ANDREWS: I thought I had the heebie-jeebies until I went up to the nearest tree and saw that they were bats, not fruit. Further back in the shadow the jungle was alive with them. Thousands upon thousands hung from the branches, head down, like big black pears. Suddenly a breeze swept out from the depths of the jungle, and it brought a sweetish, musty odor that was almost overpowering.

LYON: That must have been a creepy sort of an island! An island of bats.

ANDREWS: Yes, Helen, and I called it Devil's Island. I had a shotgun with me. Just to see what would happen, I fired both barrels over the trees, and I certainly got action. Up to that moment the island had been hushed in a dead silence, with no living thing stirring. But no sooner had I fired the two shots than the picture changed. Bats...thousands of them... 50,000...100,000...maybe a million, for all I know...came swarming out of the jungle. The sky was black with them.

MINER: Those bats, Dr. Andrews, were they large or small?

ANDREWS: I should call them large. Each had a wing spread of more than 2 feet. I had a very squeamish feeling as they soared all around me, not alone because there were so many of them but because of the utter absence of noise. It was a weird sight. There was something ghastly and unhealthy about it that made me shiver.

MINER: Isn't it strange that bats should affect us that way?

LYON: Dr. Miner, I don't see anything strange about that.

MINER: But Orientals consider bats to be omens of good fortune.

ANDREWS: Yes, Helen, with the Chinese a bat is a good luck sign. But say...I think it is time for us to return the School of the Air to the Columbia Studios...and, as we say good-by on this, the last broadcast of New Horizons of the American School of the Air for this year, I want to tell all of you who listen in how much we have enjoyed being with you since this series started last fall. Good-by, good luck, and here's hoping our trails may cross again!

(Switch to studio)

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Dr. Andrews...and thank you, too, for your friendly offer to give our listeners a picture of the mantrap clam. I'm certainly going to get one of those for myself...a 500-pound clam...boy! Is that something! To get this interesting picture, send your name and address to New Horizons, Columbia Broadcasting System, New York City. A postal card will do. I repeat, send your name and address to New Horizons, Columbia Broadcasting System, New York City. This brings to the close the twenty-fourth presentation of New Horizons of Columbia's American School of the Air, with Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews as your host and commentator. Guests of Dr. Andrews today were Mrs. Mary Sheridan Fahnestock, Dr. Roy W. Miner, and Miss Helen Lyon. The script was written by Mr. Hans Christian Adamson and directed by Mr. George Allen. This is John Reed King speaking for New Horizons of the American School of the Air. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.