ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON GEOPHYSICS 6^ 



O 



\_Dr. O. Kohlrausch to Mr. Walcott^ June i§^ ipo2.'] 



[Trauslatiou.] 



CHARLOTTENBURG,yi?^7Z^ 75, Ip02. 



Honored Sir : 



Although your inquiry is directed to the physicist rather than to 

 the geologist, a competent judgment from the physical standpoint 

 will require at least a superficial knowledge of geological questions 

 and of the geological point of view. For this reason my answer 

 has been delayed. 



With the help of the literature and from conversation and corres- 

 pondence with colleagues, I think I am now sufficiently informed 

 upon the question to be able to say without reservation that a phys- 

 ical laboratory for geological purposes may achieve great success. 

 So far as known to me such an institution would be among those 

 laboratories which at present are subject to no competition. This 

 is an important point. For if such amply endowed institutions 

 are to be created for physical research, as are now contemplated in 

 various parts of the world, an effort should be made to distribute 

 the problems among them so far as it is possible. Each nation will, 

 of course, reserve to itself many fields of scientific investigation, as 

 well as the application of the results, whether similar investigations 

 are in progress elsewhere or not ; I might name as such, for ex- 

 ample, thermal, electrical and optical tests of instruments and mate- 

 rials in addition to the more general scientific investigations. But 

 there is such a strong tendency continually to subdivide the field of 

 scientific research, and each subdivision when undertaken upon a 

 large scale r<^quires so large an expenditure of funds and labor, that 

 economic considerations make it desirable to divide up the task in 

 undertaking the various special fields of research. The results of 

 such investigation, of course, become international property and 

 duplication is seldom necessary. 



For this reason it seems to me an important argument for the 

 founding of a geophysical laboratory within the Carnegie institu- 

 tion, that there is not now in existence an institute with large re- 

 sources, dedicated to this purpose. 



It is furthermore a conspicuous fact that the United States, by 

 reason of its extended and widely varied natural resources, would 

 offer an especially favorable opportunity for a geophysical institute. 



The chief problem of the institution will be to establish the con- 



