Crocker Land

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the name given for some years to a supposed island or continent in the Arctic region reported by Peary as having been seen by him from a point in Grant Land in 1906. An expedition sent to explore the land seven years later found nothing whatever in the place indicated, the appearance of land having been due to a polar mirage which the later explorers also observed and which Peary had mistaken for distant mountains. Crocker Land appeared on all Arctic maps for some time. CRÔ-MAGNONS CRÔ-MAGNONS, a name first applied by Paul Broca to a European race which achieved a considerable degree of culture prior to the Nordic invasion of Europe. Their remains and numerous works of art were first found in the so-called Crô- Magnon cave of France, the skulls being distinguishable from those of both earlier and succeeding races. The Cro-Magnons are believed to have lived from 10,000 to 25,000 years ago and probably declined through intermixture with the earlier peoples whom they found in Europe. CROP FORECASTS. The U. S. Government, through the Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates, issues monthly announcements in regard to the condition and prospective yield of all the great agricultural crops of the country. The reports are made up from returns received from salaried field agents, from expert crop specialists, and from more than 200,000 volunteer crop reporters such as farmers, growers of special crops, dealers, and shipping associations, all of whom fill in schedules supplied by the bureau. The data so collected is checked up and tabulated by expert statisticians at Washington, every precaution being taken to prevent the totals of any of the speculative crops from being known to any individual in advance of the published report. Even the tabulators of the figures do not know the States to which they pertain, and the crop-reporting board is locked up from outside communication from the time the last figures are put into its hands to the minute the public reports are issued. The reports are based principally on actually observed conditions in the growing crops, but the estimating board also has for its guidance the various kinds of data supplied by the Weather Bureau and numerous local reports and estimates made by State authorities, private agencies, etc. Wherever the estimates have been able to be checked up by later figures, as by the census returns of any year or State, they have been proved to be remarkably accurate. In January, 1922, the former "Monthly Crop Reporter," issued by the Department of Agriculture, was merged into a new weekly publication under the title of "Weather, Crops, and Markets."