24 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



available resources. Publications already issued and in press from 

 this department of work are furnishing remarkable contributions to 

 our knowledge of the properties of matter, alike of interest and value 

 to the theoretical physicist and to the practical engineer. 



Some degree of novelty, it may be said, attaches to the investi- 

 gations into the physics and chemistry of human nutrition carried 

 on by Prof. F. G. Benedict at Wesleyan University, 

 InV NuStion S ° n Middletown, Connecticut ; by Profs. R. M. Chitten- 



den and h. B. Mendel, at Yale University, New 

 Haven, Connecticut, and by Dr. T. B. Osborne, of the Connecticut 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, at New Haven, Connecticut. The 

 details of these investigations are far too numerous and technical 

 to permit adequate description here. Summarily, however, it may 

 suffice to state that Professor Benedict is making experiments on men 

 similar to the experiments made by mechanical engineers on steam 

 engines and power plants to determine their physical properties and 

 efficiencies. An apparatus has been devised whereby man as an 

 engine, or power plant, may be studied as carefully and as conclu- 

 sively as any other mechanical plant. An account of this apparatus 

 and of the results to be expected from its use will soon appear as 

 No. 42 of the publications of the Institution. Professors Chittenden 

 and Mendel, on the other hand, are studying the chemical and 

 physiological processes and effects in man arising from the qualities 

 and quantities of foods he consumes ; while Dr. Osborne is engaged 

 in an exhaustive determination of the chemical properties of that 

 large group of foodstuffs known as proteids. The prospective 

 value of these researches admits of no doubt ; and in addition to 

 their direct bearing on the human economy, in health and disease, 

 they possess a peculiar interest arising from the fact that the instru- 

 ments of investigation are also the objects of research. 



Of the larger projects undertaken by the Institution the Solar 

 Observatory ranks first in order of cost for initial construction and 



equipment. This cost, however, is no more than 

 The Solar Observa- commensurate with the magnitude of the problem 



attacked, namely, that of the physical constitu- 

 tion of the sun and his role in the solar and stellar systems of the 

 visible universe. The work of construction and equipment of the 

 observatory has been pushed forward with great energy and effi- 

 ciency during the year, so that the establishment may be expected 



