REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1909. 29 



in the main on concentration of effort and persistence of industry, along with 

 ample financial and patient moral support from the Board of Trustees. 



In anticipation of the retrospectiv view which will be naturally taken at 

 the forthcoming meeting of the Board of Trustees, the heads of departments 

 have been invited by the Executiv Committee to place on exhibition in the 

 new Administration Building such evidences of their work and results already 

 attaind as may be readily available. It is hoped that the Trustees may thus 

 become more intimately acquainted with the general features if not with the 

 complex details of departmental researches. In view of this proposed exhi- 

 bition and in view of the admirable summaries in the current departmental 

 reports of work completed and of work in progress, the following references 

 to the several departments are restricted to narrow limits. 



The growing public appreciation of the research work to which the Institu- 

 tion is devoted is manifested in many ways. Thus when a few years ago 

 some members of the staff of the Desert Botanical Lab- 



Department of oratory transferd their investigations during the hotter 

 part of the year from Tucson, Arizona, to Carmel, Cali- 

 fornia, on the Pacific Coast, the Carmel Development Company offerd to 

 supply them with a laboratory and grounds suitable for the conduct of their 

 studies and experiments. This offer was accepted by the Board of Trustees 

 at their meeting of December 8, 1908, and during the past summer the de- 

 partment has made use of the building and grounds so generously placed at 

 its disposal. A picture of this building will be shown in the forthcoming 

 Year Book. In addition to the excellent facilities of the laboratory, the 

 grounds afford increast opportunities to study the effects of transfers of 

 plants from the conditions of one environment to those of another. 



The various investigations of the department, hitherto outlined, have been 

 successfully continued during the past year. Among these the experiments 

 of the Director in the production of mutants in plants seem destined to play 

 a fundamental role in the determination of the absorbing biological question 

 of the derivation of species. Equally important in this same line are the 

 experiments with beetles of Professor Tower, for whom vivaria are now 

 maintaind at the Desert Laboratory at Tucson and at the Marine Biological 

 Laboratory at Dry Tortugas, Florida. 



Dr. B. E. Livingston severd his connection with the department on Octo- 

 ber I, 1909, in order to accept a professorship in Johns Hopkins University. 

 The Department will lose also, at the end of the calendar year, the activ 

 services of Professor Volney M. Spalding, who will retire at that time under 

 the terms of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 



