REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 11 



welder will work over the entire collection and prepare a report upon 

 this group of insects, 



GRANTS 



Kamerlingh Onnes Ldboratorium der Rijks-Universiteit te 

 Leiden. — In continuation of a number of previous grants to the 

 Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, through its director, Prof. Dr. W. H. 

 Keesom, the Institution contributed $500 toward the support of 

 certain of the low-temperature researches now in progress at the 

 laboratory. At the suggestion of the Secretary, a like contribution 

 was also made by the Research Corporation of New York. 



Dr. Erzsehet Kol. — A grant of $700 was made to Dr. Erzsebet 

 Kol to enable her to study the biology of snow algae on the 

 snow fields and glaciers of Alaska. Dr. Kol, a botanist of Szeged, 

 Hmigary, has come to this country through a fellowship from the 

 American Association of University Women to study the snow algae 

 on high mountains in the United States. The Smithsonian grant 

 will enable her to extend the work to include Alaska. Dr. Kol's 

 studies in the field of cryobiology have covered a period of 10 years 

 and have included similar field work in the mountains of Switzer- 

 land, Norway, France, and Hungary. 



Mount 'Washington Ohservatory. — A small contribution of $50 

 was made toward the continued support of Mount Washington Ob- 

 servatory. This high-level observatory (6,284 ft.) in New Hamp- 

 shire is under direction of Dr. Charles F. Brooks, of the Harvard 

 Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. Its observations are at times 

 the only upper air data available in the northeastern United States 

 in periods of general storm or fog. All phases of ice formation on 

 airplanes can readily be studied here on the ground, as the ice- 

 forming wind rushes by at airplane speeds. 



FIFTH ARTHUR LECTURE 



The fifth Arthur Lecture was given in the auditorium of the Na- 

 tional Museum February 25, 1936, by Dr. Earl S. Johnston, assistant 

 director of the Division of Radiation and Organisms, Smithsonian 

 Institution, under the title "Sun Rays and Plant Life." Dr. John- 

 ston pointed out that the wide range in type of vegetation on the 

 earth is due to the great variation in the solar energy reaching our 

 planet. These variations relate to the duration, the intensity, and 

 the quality or wave length of sunlight. The lecturer discussed the 

 investigations by the Smithsonian Institution and other agencies of 

 the harmful and beneficial effects upon plant growth of specific wave 

 lengths of light. 



