4 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



perhaps for the reflective work of research than for the execu- 

 tive work of his chosen profession. 



Professor Minot was one of the best known and highly esteemed 

 of American men of science. While his range of studies included 

 the entire group of subjects now implied by the term l^iology, he 

 was an authority especially in anatomy and embryology. He 

 was deeply interested also in other branches of science and like- 

 wise in the progress of science as a whole. He took an active 

 part in the organization of the numerous special societies which 

 have sprung into existence in recent decades out of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science; and at the same 

 time he was equally effective in the constructive work essential 

 to conserve the continuity and the prosperity of the parent 

 organization. In addition to this conspicuous service to Ameri- 

 can science, he was long an influential trustee of the Marine 

 Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, while his 

 administration of the Elizabeth Thompson research fund was a 

 model at once of fidelity and efficiency. 



W^ith the progress of the European war the wisdom of a general 

 suspension of the Institution's activities in the belligerent coun- 

 tries became increasingly evident. According^, 

 European all Rescarch Associates who are citizens of the 

 '^^^' United States have been withdrawn from the war 



zones and nearly all work of the Institution hitherto under way, 

 or planned for, in belligerent territory has been suspended. This 

 has required many changes of plans, particularly in the Depart- 

 ments of Historical Research and Terrestrial Magnetism, and it 

 must delay the researches of a number of investigators who are 

 now excluded in part from access to the sources of information 

 essential to their several fields of inquiry. Except for these 

 restrictions the direct effects of the European war on the work 

 of the Institution have not been serious, and the inevitable 

 indirect effects, which may be much more detrimental, have not 

 had time to manifest themselves. How these indirect effects, now 

 slowly evolving, may fall upon research and allied organizations 

 can not be clearly foreseen; but the unparalleled destruction 

 of Ufe and of property now going on in Europe may be confi- 

 dently expected to entail closely related though probably quite 



