b CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



With completion of the year's cruise by the Carnegie, and the 

 summing up of its results, attention may be directed more partic- 

 ularly to land observations, to critical studies of terrestrial and 

 atmospheric electricity, to experimental studies bearing upon the 

 nature of magnetism, and to assembling and interpreting the great 

 mass of data made available from all sources through many years 

 of field work. 



Beginning with the year 1921, the Department of Experi- 

 mental Evolution and the Eugenics Record Office have come to 



Department of fuuctiou as an administrative unit known as the 

 ^Xn3S,ng?ess' Department of Genetics. This change brings 



of Eugenics. ^j^g biological studies of inheritance, based upon 

 investigation of many groups of plants and animals, to bear 

 more directly on studies of human genetics conducted through 

 the Eugenics Record Office. Important as knowledge of 

 heredity is in its application to development of the animals 

 and plants which contribute to meet our needs, there is no 

 group of questions more significant in the complicated organi- 

 zation of human society than those concerning the meaning and 

 the possibility of direction or control of inheritance in man. 

 Without full understanding of the biological factors concerned, 

 it might appear that intelligence and social organization have 

 brought relatively large opportunity for degeneration. On the 

 other hand, adequate understanding of the principles governing 

 the course of descent may give to mankind opportunity for more 

 rapid and more advantageous development than has been known 

 in the past lines of evolution of other organisms. 



In the course of the last year the International Congress of 

 Eugenics held in New York City contributed much toward bet- 

 terment of our understanding of these problems. The Director 

 and many members of the staff of the Department of Genetics 

 gave much time and effort to support of the program of contribu- 

 tions covered by the International Congress, and, reciprocally, 

 the Congress has assisted materially in furnishing a better basis 

 for future stages in the work of this department. 



