The Siftings Herald

Study of Whales
Casts Doubt on Brain
Convolution Theory

By OSCAR LEIDING
(Associated Press Science Editor)

BALTIMORE, Aug. 1.(AP)--Folds in the human brain may signify degrees of mentality, but in whales their occurrence is a fact unexplained by science.

Cerebral convolutions are more marked in whales than in man according to A. Brazier Howell, Johns Hopkins mammalogist, yet the purpose of a high-type brain in the monster sea beasts, with need for only low mental equipment, is unknown.

The scientist suggests that man's mentality may not be as greatly attributable to the folds as many have supposed.

For this, and other reasons, Dr. Howell believes that the whale is the most attractive beast for scientific study. "The greatest beast that has ever lived," he said, is interesting because:

More than any other mammal now living his skull has changed most, partly because of the migration of his nostrils to the top of his head.

He is the only one that has more than three bones to a single finger, some whales having more than 17 bones.

For mechanical reasons he has assumed a cigar shape and is one of the only two kinds of mammals whose tail has taken on a fish-like shape.

"Whalebone,"
the sieve through
which some
whales
strain their
food, occurs in no other mammal.

A whale
with a length
of 100
feet, has a gullet no more than five inches in diameter.

Sounds are transmitted by resonance through the bones of the head to an inner ear very different from that of other mammals.

He has a remarkable hide, so tender in some ways and so tough in others, and without skin glands.

He can submerge to a depth of a mile, yet can speed to the surface without being affected by the quick removal of pressure.

"A scientific understanding of the remarkable animal," Dr. Howell concluded, "would probably give knowledge that can be applied in correcting a number of serious, and even fatal, derangements of bodily functions to which man is subject."