178 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



require great and long sustained expenditure as well as the organ- 

 ized cooperation of a corps of investigators. No existing univer- 

 sity seems to be in a position to prosecute such researches on an 

 adequate scale. 



" It is therefore, in the judgment of the Council of the Congres 

 Geologique International, a matter of the utmost importance to the 

 entire scientific world that some institution should found a well 

 equipped geophysical laboratory for the study of problems of geology 

 involving further researches in chemistry and physics. ' ' 



In view of the foregoing facts, I think I may unhesitatingly assert 

 that not only the geologists of this country, but the geologists of the 

 world, and all the chemists and physicists who have given any atten- 

 tion to the subject, believe that the results which would be obtained 

 by the establishment of a geophysical laboratory would lead to funda- 

 mental advances in the science of geology and great advances in the 

 sciences of physics and chemistry. 



The Work of a Geophysical Laboratory. 



The general lines of work of a geophysical laboratory are fully set 

 forth in the first report of the Advisory Committee. It has been my 

 aim to supplement this part of the report by ascertaining the nature 

 of the problems which geologists regard as most pressing and which 

 chemists and physicists regard as capable of being successfully at- 

 tacked. I am not able to make an exhaustive statement in these 

 respects ; but, as a result of many conferences, I can specify certain 

 lines along which enough work has been done to make it certain 

 that important results will follow from adequate investigations. 

 While the problems here mentioned are by no means exhaustive, 

 they are sufficiently numerous to show that there is ample work 

 which should be taken up at once to occupy a geopl^sical laboratory 

 for many years. Some of these problems are as follows : 



( 1 ) The Relations of Liquid and Solid Rocks. — A line of work along 

 which many geologists are asking for information is that concerning 

 the relations of liquid and solid rocks. They want to know the 

 melting points of rocks, the temperatures at which rocks crystallize 

 from magma, the relative specific gravities of melted and crystal- 

 lized rocks, the effects of slow cooling upon the crystallization of 

 rocks with and without pressure, the solution of one kind of rock in 

 another, and, in short, all the phenomena which concern the trans- 

 formation of magma to crystallized rock and of crystallized rock to 

 magma. Upon these various points almost no information is avail- 



