792 Lloyd, The Desert Botan. Laboratory of thc Carnegie Instit. of Washington. 



future will see a normal but yet more rapid development of the 

 Institution. This is assured by the appointment of Professor R. S. 

 Woodward, formerly of Columbia University, a man of high 

 scientific attainments and a keen appreciation of the function of 

 seience added to a remarkable gift of executive ability, a.s Presi- 

 dent, in the early part of 1905. 



It is the purpose of this sketch to give an account of the work 

 of the Carnegie Institution in the field of botany, aside, however, 

 liom that of the special Grantees, whose individual work, which 

 has become' known to botanists through the pages of the botanical 

 niagazines, has been carried on independently. I refer, in parti- 

 cular, to the Desert Botanical Laboratory. It will be of interest 

 to trace briefly the historical development of the idea which culmi- 

 nated in the foundation and equipment of this particular brauch 

 of the Institution. 



Among other advisory committees appointed during the first 

 year of the existence of the Carnegie Institution, was one, naturally, 

 on Botany. This Conimittee, consisting of Professor N. L. Britton, 

 Professor John M. Macfarlane and Mr. Gifford Pinchot, with 

 Mr. Frederick V. Coville as Chairman, presented a report em- 

 bodying an extensive plan for the development of botanical research 

 and containing a nuniber of propositions of which one, which here 

 interests us, was the following. "There should be established at 

 some point in the desert region of the Southwestern United States 

 a laboratory for the study of the life history of plants under desert 

 conditions, with especial reference to the absorption, storage and 

 transpiration of water." The report went on to point out that 

 there existed up to that time nowhere in the world such a labora- 

 tory, although, as is w T ell known, there were many laboratories in 

 the humid regions of the earth. The economic importance in the 

 long run, of such work, carried on under the freedom of the nie- 

 thods of pure seience, were also pointed out 1 ). 



This idea immediately bore fruit in the appointment of a second 

 conimittee which was requested "to go to the arid lands of the west 

 and make such further recommendations as might seem to them 

 best" The gentlemen thus appointed were Mr. Frederick V. Co- 

 ville and Dr. D. T. MacDougal, two persons eminently fitted to 

 undertake the task assigned to them. Mr. Coville had, in 1891, 

 been a member of the now fanious Death Valley Expedition, and 

 this. together with his other desert experience, gave him the basis 

 for a ripe judgeiiient. Dr. MacDougal was also in the position 

 of an expert. having carried out a number of extensive excursions 

 intö the markedly desert regions of the Southwest United States. 



1) Car. Inst. Wash. Year Book, No. 1, 19U2. 



