REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT 



OF THE 



CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



In conformity with Article IV, section 2, of the By-Laws of the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington, the President has the honor to 

 submit the following report on the work of the Institution for the 

 jfiscal year ending October 31, 1922, along with suggestions concerning 

 certain of our general problems and provisional recommendation of 

 appropriations for the ensuing year. 



In entering upon the third decade of the Institution's activities, it 

 has seemed desirable to take stock of our assets and to review our aims. 

 Present With Continued high cost of everything involved in 



Problems. research, we find that for 1923 our funds immedi- 

 ately available for investigations will be measurably smaller, while 

 the needs for study have increased beyond the number for which 

 provision has been made in budgets of recent years. It is a credit 

 to our staff that in the process of solving many difficult problems 

 unanswered questions grow more numerous with the progress of 

 investigation, and that the opportunities for accomplishment in con- 

 structive work continue to increase. It is natural and commendable 

 that our researchers desire to see all new questions answered, but 

 it is a part of our problem to discover how far effectiveness in ex- 

 penditure of energy and funds makes it desirable that we select from 

 available opportunities those which most clearly represent the duties 

 of this Institution. 



On the purely material side we have completed an inventory of all 

 equipment possessed by the Institution. We carry our own insurance 

 and it is desirable at this time of changing costs to test the effectiveness 

 of the system in operation. 



Immeasurably more important than the material inventory has been 

 the attempt to review our research accomplishments of the past 

 twenty years and to see them in the light of the present status of 

 knowledge and the responsibilities of research in the future. As our 

 work is of a type dealing at the same time with the rapidly changing 

 outside margin of knowledge and with the modifications in organization 

 which these changes make necessary we must expect wide variability 

 in operation if the Institution serves its purpose. 



