feminist leader, in speaking about Jane Addams of Chicago said that women have accomplished much for the public in the line of service because they know what is for the public good. The accomplishments of Alice Tibiriçá are true exemplifications of this wise statement. As a great social worker she voluntarily took the responsibility of meeting serious problems of public interest. Once learning of them she realized that something must be done about them; somebody must act. Through her devotion and intelligent understanding she made the whole country aware of these problems, winning the cooperation of thousands of people. Her campaign against leprosy attracted the attention of the government; this was its primary significance.

The Society for the Assistance of Lepers. and the Prevention of Leprosy flourishes now in the hands of other devoted presidents. Each state of Brazil has its own hospitals, clinics, colonies with preventoriums, schools, churches, recreation centers, workshops, and educational facilities. According to the plan for the prevention of the disease, the patients are to be kept in their own regions.

Behind all these achievements as well as more recent projects, Alice Tibiriçá stands as the tutelary genius, just as throughout the centuries the first of the family name has been the glory of São Paulo. However, she is sure to have a successor. Her daughter, Maria Augusta de Toledo Tibiriçá, since early youth has followed in her footsteps, and has prepared herself for the task ahead. She graduated in medicine from the University of Brazil, and in social service in the courses organized by her mother under the sponsorship of the University; she also has diplomas in the courses on labor hygiene given at the Departamento Administrativo do Serviço Público (Civil Service Commission), in the course on industrial hygiene taken at the War Industries Board, and in the course on hospital organization and management of the Rio de Janeiro Department of Public Health.

"Remember your beautiful mission, to devote yourself to others; be happy yourself by making others happy" seems, indeed, to be the inspiring motto of the women of the Tibiriçá family.

The name is not a mere label, but a distinct part of their personalities.

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THE official temperatures taken under protected conditions give no idea of the real heat which the traveler may encounter in Cuba. January, February, and March are charming. The sky is clear, the sun hot, the shade cool, and the nights are delightful. And in the normal course every few weeks a norther freshens the air, sometimes bringing the temperature down to 55° or 60° Fahrenheit, which seems fearfully frigid. Very rarely even more cold is encountered and the poor people, ill-clothed as they are suffer woefully, for windows are wide and glass is rare outside of Havana. From April to December when the heat is very great, there seems to be solace in the remark so often repeated, that it is never as hot in Havana as it is in New York in summer. This is only partly true. It seldom goes over 92° at noon, indoors, but it approaches this

Through the courtesy of the late author and publisher the BULLETIN is privileged to print a few pages from Thomas Barbour's A Naturalist in Cuba, published late in 1945 by Little, Brown and Company. It was a labor of love, a tribute to commemorate Dr. Barbour's friendship and admiration for the naturalists of Cuba, as he said in his dedication, and one that expresses his affection for all Cuba. "The taste and feel of the place" are in every line, whether the subject is the Harvard Garden at Soledad, birds, caves and cavedwelling creatures, Cuban food, or simply dawn and nightfall. Since 1908 Dr. Barbour had been going to Cuba for long or short stays, so many that he had lost count. Reading this book will add to the enjoyment of any other visitor to Cuba who has a seeing eye and a friendly heart.

The BULLETIN records with regret that Dr. Barbour died in Boston January 8, 1946. He was world famous as a naturalist.

figure very closely every day, and at night there is no very marked change. In the open country and in the street in the sun really fantastically high temperatures may be found. This is mentioned simply in the interest of accuracy, not because the heat is unhealthful, or especially unpleasant to anyone who loves the tropics. Quite the

reverse.

The Spaniards built their cities with too narrow streets, which, while easily shaded with awnings above, admit no drafts or air. Their houses, on the contrary, were built more sensibly than those built in the colonies of the English, French, or Dutch. The hotel room I used for years in Havana had a stud of thirty feet and such are not rare the thick walls, the large high windows and doors, make perfect tropical houses, and the wonder is that only now have they begun to be copied. Modern dwellings in south Florida have gained a great deal by copying Cuban architecture, and Cuba in recent years has been widely pillaged for old tiles for roofing.

The island is extraordinarily healthful. Yellow fever is gone; hookworm has but a small hold; filariasis is much rarer than elsewhere in the West Indies; only malaria continues to be a problem. In portions of central Cuba and the lowlands of Oriente there are still many foci of severe malarial infection.

Cuba is, generally speaking, a hot country with a very uniform temperature. The rainfall is distributed as in so many tropical regions, there being a rainy season and a dry. From May to November it is rainy and from December to April dry. The rainy season is normally marked by two peaks of rainfall-usually in June and October. The summer season is characterized by frequent thunderstorms. These are preceded by the formation of magnificent castles of towering cumulus clouds, accompanied by the dying out of the breezes until the heat becomes extremely oppressive; then comes what the Cubans call the aire de agua, a fresh, humid, and most agreeable breath of air. The thunder now increases, to drum-fire intensity, the lightning flashes sometimes almost unceasingly. Finally the skies open and rain falls in a way that we seldom see it fall here in the North. Cloudbursts of a number of inches falling in a single hour are not unusual.

Two phenomena are so characteristic and dramatic that I cannot pass them by without a word. I recall the first of many northers which I have felt and seen in Havana. A norther is usually preceded by a south wind. Perhaps you know the old saying: A Sur duro, Norte seguro. The south wind gradually dies out and there is a breathless stillness which somehow always seems to me to convey, subconsciously, an aura of impending trouble. Suddenly the norther, really a northwester, starts to blow; the temperature drops and there may be a drizzle or a sharp shower of rain. If you are in Havana my advice is to hurry to the Malecón and watch the ocean grow angry. If the norther is a really bad one you'll soon have to take shelter. Many a time have I seen the waves rise to dash and break, the spray flying over the lighthouse on Morro Castle. I have often seen the streets of the waterfront inundated in a few hours after the onset of the storm and when the tempest has died away seen gangs

of workmen clearing away rifts of sand and coral heads tossed up by the waves into the streets. The weather now may clear and then a few days of fresh, cool weather ensue, most enjoyable wherever you may be. Sometimes, however, the succeeding days of cold may bring great suffering to people who live in houses where there is no glass in the windows and no blankets on the beds. The northers are the exciting features of winter weather and they form a contrast to the hurricanes of the summer months.

So far as I know no really good explanation for the origin of a hurricane has ever been determined. To say that they are tornadoes or twisters on a giant scale is descriptive but not explanatory. Cyclones usually build themselves in the ocean east of the Caribbean Sea, frequently blow across Cuba and pass out over Yucatán, or blow along Cuba and perhaps strike the Mexican coast, sometimes curling back to Florida. Many others, however, miss Cuba entirely, crossing the Bahama Islands to strike Florida, or curving northward to reach the coast of

Virginia and even New England. The latent powers within the atmosphere are impossible to describe. One day may be calm, peaceful, and the next the elements may rage with such force and engendering such terror that it is almost impossible to describe. The sight of the oncoming hurricane is awe-inspiring. The noise of the rising wind is fearful. The sheer heights of fury which it reaches at the peak of the storm are indescribable, and overwhelming. I don't mind anyone's saying that he has been afraid during a hurricane. I don't believe any living person has ever passed through one and not been afraid. The sights of buildings and villages blowing to pieces, of the tops of palm trees popping off and hurtling over the ground like tumbleweeds on the prairie, is a manifestation of the power of nature which is unequaled. I am sure the typhoons in the Old World may be just as bad as the hurricanes in the New, but my own experience has done nothing but make me hope and pray quite simply and humbly that I may never see one again.

weather, four or five months. When the fields become muddy with the spring rains the bulls cannot pull the heavy, highwheeled carts out to get the cane to the scales. These weighing points are situated at varying distances along the complicated lines of plantation railroad. Empty cars must be distributed to each scale and loaded cars picked up and hauled to the mill to supply cane to the crushers during all of the twenty-four hours of every day.

Reduced to the human equation, this means that the men who cut the cane rise early, long before daylight, drink a cup of black coffee, usually about two o'clock in

the morning, take their horses, and ride to the field. Cane cutting is not by any means the simple process that it would appear to be. The cutter grasps a stalk of cane in his left hand about five or six feet above the ground. Then with a slash or two of his machete he strips loose the dried leaves-paja they are called. Then he swings his machete and cuts off the stalk to the left and brings it back sharply to the right against the blade of his knife. The weight of the stalk and the swing against the sharp blade cut it in half. He lops off the green top which is tossed into a separate pile, away from where he throws the cane. These tops or cogollo are later bundled up and used for cattle and horse feed. The cut stems of cane, the trozas, are picked up by women and boys, helped by the cutters when the task which

they set out to accomplish that day is finished. They are gathered and piled into the cane cart, on top of chains laid across the bottom of the wagon.

After this work is finished, the bulls which have been feeding on the green cane tops are gathered together, yoked up, and the great load, weighing a number of thousand pounds, is hauled to the scales. Here the load is weighed and the amount cut is credited to the account of the individual cutters and the bull driver as well. The chains are gathered together so that the whole load is hoisted up in the air by a winch, usually activated by a mule walking round and round in a circle. hitched to a hoisting apparatus. Drawn up in the air, it is swung over and dropped into a special type of railroad car.

In due time these cars are gathered into