208 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



the Eastman Kodak Company is concentrated primarily on 

 the study of photography. The extent of its work in this 

 field is shown by its publications. In the last thirty years, the 

 laboratory has published about a thousand scientific papers, 

 and of these by far the greater number deal with some aspect 

 of the theory of photography. To take a single year: In 1936, 

 papers were published on the formation of the latent image; 

 the analysis of gelatin; the absorption spectra of cyanine dyes; 

 the theory of image errors in lenses; the measurement of 

 photographic densities; the stability of developers; the meas- 

 urement of graininess; the decomposition of cellulose ni- 

 trate; the effect of stilfur compounds on photographic emul- 

 sions; and the application of quantum mechanics to the 

 process of exposure. 



In the divergent group of laboratories are included many 

 research institutions that are interested in science in general 

 or in science as applied to industry and that attack any prob- 

 lem promising progress in knowledge or, in the case of an 

 industrial laboratory, financial return. The greater number 

 of university and industrial laboratories are necessarily of 

 this type. It would be a disadvantage for a university lab- 

 oratory, whose primary business is training students, to be 

 too narrowly specialized. Specialized university laboratories 

 are desirable only for post-graduate students. Industrial lab- 

 oratories, on the other hand, must be prepared to deal ^vith 

 any problems presented by the plant. As these are of all 

 kinds, covering generally the whole field of physics, chem- 

 istry, and engineering, it is impossible for many plant labora- 

 tories to specialize except in so far as they deal ^vith the plant 

 processes themselves. 



The position of an industrial research laboratory in the 

 organization and its relation to the other departments of 

 the company with which it is associated are of considerable 

 importance. 



Research laboratories have originated in many different 

 ways. The earliest grew out of plant testing and control 

 laboratories and were, therefore, responsible directly to the 



