190 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



one has to lay plans some weeks in advance, be finger-printed, have 

 his past history checked, and declare that he will not sell out to the 

 enemy. Inside is the sign, "What you see here, what you hear here, 

 stays here when you leave here." In some respects it is almost like 

 a university, for there were lectures almost daily, as each department 

 tried to keep the others informed of its latest discovery. Everywhere 

 the greatest precautions are taken for safeguarding the health of the 

 workers and visitors. In certam buildings cloth shoes and coats are 

 provided, to insure that we did not inadvertantly pick up some radio- 

 active particle, which might cause a burn. The chemists watched their 

 experiments through periscopes. No work is being done on atomic 

 bombs, but important investigations in industrial and medical ap- 

 plications of atomic energy are under way. I found it a stimulating, 

 almost an exciting place, to visit. 



The workers at the Chalk River plant are housed in a town site, 

 Deep River, 12 miles by bus up the Ottawa River. This, too, had 

 a guardhouse at its entrance. Three years ago the site was just sand 

 with a light stand of evergreen and birch. Bulldozers ripped out 

 the streets, sidewalks went down, some 400 houses went up, and now 

 behold a town of some 2,000 people. A staff house shelters and feeds 

 about 200 workers and guests. There is a general store, a five-room 

 public school, a hospital with plenty of maternity cases, a recreation 

 center, and a church being organized. Some 20 clubs, camera, chess, 

 skiing, etc., flourish. It is a young people's town. The number of 

 academic degrees held by its inhabitants per capita is probably the 

 highest in Canada. 



CONCLUSION 



I conclude with the following quotation from the Presidential 

 Address to the British Association delivered in 1934 by the late Sir 

 James Jeans : 



Science has given man control over nature before he has gained control over 

 himself. The tragedy does not lie in man having so much scientific control over 

 nature, but in his having so little control over himself. Human nature changes 

 very slowly and so forever lags behind human knowledge which accumulates 

 very rapidly. Scientific knowledge is transmitted from one generation to 

 another while acquired characteristics are not. Thus in respect of knowledge 

 each generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessor but in respect of 

 human nature both stand on the same ground. 



