REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, 1914. 19 



ence does not seem to justify the optimism entertained at that 

 time. It is now plain, indeed, that while as a matter of fact truth 

 is not only stranger but much more important than fiction, con- 

 temporary media for the dissemination of the sensational and 

 the intangible are far more numerous and potent than the media 

 for the dissemination of the demonstrable, and hence permanent, 

 additions to knowledge. And it is equally plain that until there 

 is an increased demand for less of the spectacular and for more of' 

 the real, both from journalists and from their readers, there can 

 be little improvement in the popularization of discoveries and 

 advances through such media. In the meantime, the increasing 

 value of these researches, now everywhere recognized by scholars, 

 may presently justify the engagement of an expert to popularize 

 not simply the "practical results" but to furnish also what is in 

 general more important, to wit, a clef^r and concise account of 

 the principles and the methods by which such results are derived. 



Although the greater part of the work of this department is 



carried on at its principal laboratory at Tucson, Arizona, it is 



essential to a comprehensive study of desert 



Department of it t 



Botanical plant life to explore distant as well as adjacent 

 arid regions. Thus, having published during the 

 past year the results of an elaborate investigation of the region 

 of the Salton Sea, the department is now, among many other 

 activities, turning attention to similar desert basins, of which 

 there are several in the Western States that have been studied 

 hitherto in their geological rather than botanical aspects. These 

 researches are entailing also many applications of the allied 

 physical sciences not heretofore invoked to any marked extent 

 in aid of botanical science. Hence there results properly a 

 diversity of work quite beyond the implications of botany in the 

 earlier, but now quite too narrow, sense of the word. 



In addition to the work carried on by members of the depart- 

 mental staff, various investigations have been pursued by about 

 twenty collaborators, several of whom have been in temporary 

 residence at the Desert Laboratory. Among the more note- 

 worthy publications emanating from the department during the 



