±2 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



So many converging lines of fruitful research are now being pursued by 



this department that it is difficult to summarize fitly its current progress, 



-^ . This duty must be accorded, in fact, as in all other cases, 



Experimental to the Director of the department concernd, in his annual 



Evolution. reports and in his more detaild publications. From the 



abstract scientific point of view the most interesting feature of this work 



is found in the introduction of statistical and other quantitativ methods, 



whereby biology is now passing from the first to the next higher stage in the 



development of a science. From the more popular points of view the work 



in question is of special interest by reason of its bearing on the economics of 



plant and animal breeding and by reason of the light it is certain to shed on 



the laws of human heredity. 



So large and so intricate a field of work calls for varid objects and sub- 

 jects of experimentation and for the resources of many collateral sciences. 

 Thus, studies of heredity have developt the necessity of certain investigations 

 in physiological chemistry, and a small equipment for this purpose has been 

 fitted up in a room of the main laboratory building and put in charge of 

 Dr. R. A, Gortner. Similarly, for studies of the changes which organisms 

 undergo in dark caves and in deep waters, an artificial cave has been added 

 to the basement of the laboratory, and the work of experimentation by means 

 of this adjunct has been assignd to Dr. A, M. Banta, whose erly investiga- 

 tions in this line were printed by the Institution some years ago in Publica- 

 tion No. 6^. 



In order to meet the increasing needs of the department for land for the 

 cultivation of plants and the breeding of animals, the Institution purchast in 

 January, 1910, a tract of 21 acres of very desirable land lying about a mile 

 east of the laboratory. It may be noted also that Goose Island, in Long 

 Island Sound, acquird for the department a year ago, has alredy been put to 

 good use in experiments on plants and animals in a state of isolation. 



It is a source of plesure to record that two friends of the department have 

 shown their appreciation of the Director's enterprise by gifts which will 

 greatly aid him in the prosecution of his work : one has supplied a wharf 

 and a shelter house on Goose Island ; the other has furnisht funds essential 

 to establish, near to but independently of the laboratory, an offis for the 

 collection and interpretation, under the direction of Dr. Davenport, of data 

 bearing on human heredity. 



Erly in the current year the Executiv Committee requested Prof. Henry 

 W. Farnam (who was appointed Chairman of the Department of Economics 

 De artment of ^"*^ Sociology soon after the deth of Dr. Wright) to sub- 

 Economics mit a report on the status of the work of the department, 

 and Sociology. along with recommendations for its future conduct. Ac- 

 cordingly, a comprehensiv report was presented to the Executiv Committee 

 April 18, 1910, and subsequently printed in full and transmitted in this form 

 to all members of the Board of Trustees. It is assumed, therefore, that a 

 review of this report is not needed here. It should be stated, however, that 



