PAGE FOUR
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, NOV. 7, 1949
Africa May Hold Ruins Of Ancient Christian Cities
Khartoum, Sudan — (UP) — The unwritten story of an ancient Christian civilization in Africa may be buried beneath the desert sands around Karima and Dongola, on the banks of the Nile.
This wilderness is believed to conceal the history of a people who populated the area thickly until 1340 A.D.
The people built cities, had their own particular culture and kept an outpost of Christendom flourishing in the depths of the Moslem-controlled Middle East for nearly 800 years.
An amateur archeologist has seen out with camels and Sudanese bearers to survey the area at his own expense. He is Terence Gray, a wealthy Irishman, resident of the south of France.
His purpose is to collect as many clues as possible about this civilization and then report to P. L Shinnie, archeology commissioner for the Sudan government.
Gray's finds, though not sensational, have convinced Shimai that a full-scale scientific expedition should be sent out to the Karima area.
"It will fill in a blank chapter of history if such an expedition is financed," Shinnie said.
If the expedition is not sent, it is likely that the "blank chapter" never will be written. The Egyptian government is almost certain to start construction of a new dam in the locality soon, and the site of Shinnie's proposed investigation will be flooded by the waters of the Nile.
The archeology commissioner has drawn up a detailed plan for a large expedition, armed with equipment for digging deep enough to fold back the desert from the remains of temples and burial grounds which he feels certain lie under the sands.
It is believed that the Christian population of this extinct nation were Nubians. They were converted by missionaries of Greek extraction who were sent by the empress Theodora of Constantinople, in 540 A.D.
Theodora was at one time a harlot dancing girl, but became a devout and active Christian after her marriage to the Emperor. Constantinople, or Byzantium, was at that time the capital of the eastern half of the split Roman Empire.
Shinnie said, "While the western world was besieged by the forces of uncivilized barbarians, Theodora's missionaries were able to reach the Sudan and found the Christian community."
The Christian civilization is believed to have been finally overrun in the 14th century by Moslem forces from the north. No massacres are known to have taken place, and the reason for the gradual degeneration and final disappearance of the population of the area is another point which Shinnie wants to clear up.
Geologic Meeting Studies Oil Rocks
Approximately 225 persons attended the field conference in Shawnee and Wabausea counties Oct. 28 Dr. J. M. Jewett, geologist of the state geological survey and leader of the conference said today.
The purpose of the conference was to examine rocks important to oil geologists in current investigations resulting from new oil discoveries in Wabaunsee county. The conference was sponsored by the Kansas Geological society, composed of geologists of the state.
Approximately 40 members of the state and federal geological surveys and the departments of geology and petroleum engineering of the University attended the conference.
Oil geologists from several oil companies and representatives from Kansas State college, Municipal University of Wichita and the University of Nebraska also attended the conference.
Lassen volcano in northern California is the only active volcano in the U.S.
Baur Talks To Club On Denmark Co-ops
Dr. E. Jackson Baur, associate professor of sociology, discussed the extent of cooperatives in Denmark at a meeting of the Sociology club Thursday.
On their own initiative the people of Denmark have formed cooperatives to build schools and help persons buy farms and homes.
Medicine has been socialized on a cooperative basis and has been subsidized by the government about 20 per cent.
It would take 53 years for an airplane, traveling 200 miles an hour, to go from the earth to the sun.
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Smiling due east out of Boston harbor, one would land first in Spain.
11 Stranded Off Antarctica May Soon End Freeze-Out
Eleven men are waiting and watching, on an icebound island off Antarctica, for their ship to come in.
The British ship John Biscoe will try again during the comi-
moderate season" to pick up scientists left for nearly three years on Stonington island, in Marguerite Bay, off Graham land.
This marooned party, is one of a number of research and exploration teams sent out by the British government's Falkland islands dependencies survey.
South Sandwich, South Orkney,
South Shetland islands, and the mainland peninsula of Graham land.
The Stonington group, stationed at the farthest-south base of the survey, was due for relief early in 1949, after two years' duty. Unusually severe ice-pack conditions at the time, however, prevented the team from moving through. The present try, to be made in several months will be fortified by two ski-equipped planes for alternative air rescue.
The dependencies are bleak and windswept patches of land scattered southeast and south of the main Falklands to the Antarctica mainland. They include South Georgia,
Through the years, valuable material on temperatures, winds, and rainfall has been obtained in the Dependencies. Mineral samples have been collected.
According to reports, mineral discoveries in the Falkland Dependencies have so far proved disappointing. The surrounding seas, however, are of great economic value as the world's last major whaling field.
Shakespeare, according to estimates, never made a continuous journey as far as as a round trip from Boston to New York.
Call K.U. 251 With Your News
FOR STUDENTS OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
yarn from corncobs!
A DU PONT PROCESS CONVERTS
FURFURAL INTO A CHEMICAL
FOR MAKING NYLON
One of the fascinating things about nylon is the unlikely sounding raw materials that go into it. Popularly, nylon is said to be made from coal, air and water. This is because originally, in developing its chemical intermediates, chemists used benzene (from coal), ammonia (from air and water), and oxygen (from air).
But Du Pont is always looking for new ways of doing things. After the discovery of nylon in 1934, research men immediately began looking for alternative ways of making the two main intermediates—adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine. In 1935, when nylon was still in the laboratory stage and three years before its commercial debut, they started work on the possibility of using furfural in the process.
A. G. Sveinjørsson, Ph.D., Organic Chemistry, University of Kansas, 1948, and H. B. Copelin, M. S., Organic Chemistry, Cornell, 1941, studying new furfural derivatives.
Furfural has been used in the chemical industry for 25 years, but it is little known to the layman. A tancolored liquid with a faint bitteralmond odor, it is made from a wide variety of agricultural by-products. Among these are corncobs and hulls of cottonseed, oats, rice—all available in practically unlimited quantities from America's farms.
14 Years of Research and Development
C. R. Dewey, B. S. Chem, Niagara University, 1941, and J. M. Estes, B.S. Ch.E., University of Missouri, 1937, engaged in production of adiponitrile at the DuPont Electrochemicals plant at Niagara Falls, New York.
It seems a far cry from corncobs to nylon, and it was. The development from the first small-scale laboratory experiments to the present full-scale plant cost 14 years of time and about five million dollars. But it enabled chemists to produce large quantities of adiponitrile, the compound from which hexamethylenediamine is made, by an economical process which uses natural materials that are in continuous supply.
In the new process, furfural is converted by a series of steps to 1,4-dichlorobutane. The next step explains in part why Du Pont undertook the project in the first place. As producers of cyanides, they had sodium
Scale model of a part of the Du Pont adiponitrile plant at Niagara Falls. Here furfural, an agricultural by-product, is converted into a chemical intermediate for making nylon.
cyanide available for converting the 1,4-dichlorobutane into adiponitrile.
The final product, hexamethylene-diamine, is then reacted with adipic acid to make nylon "salt." Still more processing and the salt becomes yarn, and the nylon flake used by the plastics industry.
Only a large company with ample resources in men and money could afford to engage in research of such magnitude. To the young college graduate, Du Pont offers the broadest of opportunities in many scientific fields, along with the advantages of working directly with a small group of associates.
Opportunities at Du Pont in many scientific fields
Keynote of Du Pont personnel policy is promotion from within on a competitive merit basis. A conscientious effort is made not only to choose college-trained people of promise, but to develop each individual as rapidly as possible.
This is an excellent example of the interesting work in industrial organic chemistry carried on at Du Pont. It required the technical knowledge and skill of highly trained research and development men, including organic and physical chemists; chemical, mechanical, civil and electrical engineers, and others.
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