70 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 11, NO. 4 



those commodities when produced. It required the stress of war 

 conditions in 1917 and 1918 to wake us up to the fact that production 

 was far better organized than distribution. It w^as not the factories 

 and mines and farms that had to be taken over and unified under 

 government control to meet war emergencies, but the railroads, 

 steamship Hues, export organizations, and wholesale and retail agencies 

 of distribution. 



An analogous situation has existed in the field of research for new 

 knowledge. Private funds are expended in elaborate investigations; 

 university laboratories and personnel are devoted to research on 

 every conceivable subject; great foundations are established to carry 

 forward systematized inquiry into problems too extensive for in- 

 dividuals to handle ; and State and Federal governments devote large 

 annual appropriations to obtaining new and useful knowledge through 

 experiment and observation. Of what use is all this effort, unless 

 its results be made available so that the public may benefit, intel- 

 lectually or materially? 



Yet the distribution of all this information is, relatively speaking, 

 neglected, and left to the uncertain channels of the untutored private 

 author, the unsympathetic clerk, or the sensation-seeking news 

 agency. Much of it practically disappears from view soon after 

 its discovery. 



Let me emphasize this statement of the situation by a concrete 

 example, taken from an informal communication by Mr. R. W. 

 Stone'^ before the Geological Society of Washington in November, 

 1917. 



About the year 1902 representatives of the Geological Survey of 

 the State of Washington observed that the rock in a certain "marble" 

 quarry consisted almost entirely of crystalline magnesium carbonate. 

 Similar rocks were at the same time shown to exist at other localities 

 in the State. The chemical analyses and other facts were published 

 by the State Survey. Meanwhile the "marble" proved to be not a 

 success as a building or decorative stone and the original quarry 

 was abandoned and grew up in weeds. 



Then came the World War, and by 1917 Austrian magnesite, 

 which had until then been delivered on the Atlantic coast for the 

 eastern steel works, was completely cut off. A massive magnesite 

 from California then began to be shipped east. Chemical analyses 

 showing that a better magnesite existed in Washington slumbered 



3 This Journal 8: 99. 1918. 



