18 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



by the Department of Historical Research. These undertak- 

 ings required many men in arduous researches and involved no 

 inconsiderable costs to the Institution, since it assumed, in most 

 cases, the principal overhead expenses. Not less important 

 relatively than these larger operations were many special and 

 individual contributions to the general cause. That essential 

 occupations were quickly developed for what are sometimes 

 called ''narrow specialists" in nearly every branch of learning 

 cultivated by the Institution affords striking evidence at once 

 of the diversity of modern warfare and of the ultimate practical 

 value of recondite researches. 



Although formal requests from the Government for services 

 ceased nominally toward the close of the calendar year 1918, 

 they actually continued until nearly the middle of 1919. Thus, 

 the optical work and the researches on the concentration of 

 nitrates for the War Department did not end until June 1919; 

 the information work of the Department of Historical Research 

 continued until mid-July; some special work for the Navy was 

 done by the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism as late as 

 September of this year; while a few other relations in Govern- 

 ment undertakings still remain to be severed. It is only recently, 

 also, that members of the Institution in the miUtary and other 

 services of the Government have returned to their posts; so that 

 emergence from the untoward conditions in which we find our- 

 selves has only fairly begun. 



Naturally, this deflection of interest from the normal activities 

 of the Institution has led to many changes, to some dislocations, 

 and to the suspension, or even abandonment, of a number of 

 projects. The war, in fact, has brought some sinister conse- 

 quences to the Institution as well as to most other organizations. 

 Fortunately, of those who entered the military and naval service 

 only two lives were lost, namely, Karl Edward Anderson and 

 BilUngs Theophilus Avery, both of the Department of Experi- 

 mental Evolution, who died during the year 1918. Fortunately, 

 Ukewise, while some members of the investigatory staffs of the 

 departments of research have been drawn off, by reason of their 

 abihties, into industrial or other occupations, the number of 

 such is not only small but not in excess of an inevitable and 



