REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1913. 26 



In the near future it is anticipated that the department will have 

 sufficient data to permit the construction of a new set of magnetic 

 charts, including all three magnetic elements (declination, dip, and 

 intensity), especially for that part of the globe included between the 

 parallels of 50° north and 50° south of the equator. It will then be 

 practicable to study the general problem of the earth's magnetism 

 by aid of a large mass of homogeneous data surpassing in definiteness 

 any mass hitherto available for this purpose. In anticipation of 

 the need of experimental facilities for studies of this problem and 

 others closely related thereto the office and laboratory building of 

 the department was authorized a year ago and is now approaching 

 completion, as explained in a previous section of this report. For 

 the conduct of experimental researches the department has secured 

 the services of Dr. W. F. G. Swann, late of the University of Sheffield. 

 Mr. Charles R. Duvall, late of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 has also recently joined the office staff to fill the position of expert 

 computer. 



Attention is invited to the Director's remarks on the present status 

 of the department's work, to the account of his own researches of the 

 year, and to his programs for further work. And in the interests of 

 further possible work of construction of buildings under the auspices 

 of the Institution, it may be worthy of note that preliminary plans 

 for the new laboratory were well matured by Mr. Fleming, engineer 

 of the departmental staff, before consulting an architect, and that 

 supervision of construction has also been assigned to Mr. Fleming. 

 This method of procedure, which has been followed in several in- 

 stances by the Institution, appears to be highly advantageous for 

 economy and for efficiency. 



From the date of its establishment nine years ago this observatory 

 has been one of the most important of the enterprises fostered by the 

 The Solar Institution. It has called for heavy annual appro- 

 Observatory. priations; it has grown with extraordinary rapidity 

 and with equally extraordinary productivity; and it is now an 

 organization whose staff of investigators, research associates and 

 collaborators, constructors, computers, designers, mechanicians, and 

 operators includes upwards of sixty individuals. By reason of the 

 widespread popular and technical attention given to astronomical 

 science, and by reason of the novel equipment of this observatory 

 and the relatively new field entered by it, the world looks with special 

 interest on its development, quite apart from the keen general 

 interest in the contributions it has made and may be expected to 



