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 Institu- 

 tion for the fiscal year ending October 31, 1919, along with recom- 

 mendations of appropriations for the ensuing year and with 

 sundry suggestions concerning other matters of general or special 

 interest. 



This report is the seventeenth annual administrative report 

 of the Institution and is presented under the following principal 

 heads : 



1. Salient events of the year. 



2. Researches of the year. 



3. Financial records. 



4. Publications of the year. 



5. Proposals for budget for 1920. 



6. Bibliographical appendix. 



SALIENT EVENTS OF THE YEAR. 



In the vast aggregate of phenomena of which man becomes 



more or less conscious, there are often observed remarkable 



coincidences and sequences. These must occur, 



c^gie. indeed, by reason of fortuitous combinations of 



causes as well as by reason of causal connections, 



although it is rarely possible, outside the domains of the older 



sciences, to determine in any case whether the law of chance or 



the law of causation is chiefly concerned. Thus the past year 



which has witnessed the chmax of the world's greatest national 



and international calamities has witnessed also the Institution's 



greatest losses by death; for the Founder, three of the initial 



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