KESEARCH CORPORATION AWARDS TO A. E. DOUG- 

 LASS AND ERNST ANTEVS FOR RESEARCHES IN 

 CHRONOLOGY 



(Presentation at Smithsonian Institution, Washington, December 18, 1931) 



REMARKS OF DR. C. G. ABBOT, 

 Secretary, Smithsonian Institution 



Mr. Chief Justice, Ladies and Gentlemen : The Research Corporation of 

 New Yorlv is probably the only organization of its kind in existence. It sprang 

 from the desire of a scientist to have the fruit of his scientific labors capitalized 

 for the promotion of research. In 1911 Dr. Frederick G. Cottrell, then chief 

 physical chemist, later director, of the United States Bureau of Mines, and his 

 associates offered their invention for the electrical precipitation of suspended 

 particles to the Smithsonian Institution for the benefit of science. As the Insti- 

 tution could not well undertake the development of a matter so likely to have 

 commercial and legal complications, Dr. Charles D. Walcott, then Secretary of 

 the Smithsonian, undertook with Doctor Cottrell to enlist the aid of public- 

 spirited men of Boston and New York City to organize a nonprofit-sharing cor- 

 poration for the development of the patents, and in 1912 the Research Corpora- 

 tion was formed. 



Its purposes are to acquire inventions and patents and make them more avail- 

 able in the arts and industries, while using them as a source of income, and, 

 second, to apply all profits from such use to the advancement of technical and 

 scientific investigation and experimentation. The Research Corporation has 

 succeeded financially so that it has built up a reserve and given large funds to 

 scientific work. Among grants made by the corporation are several to the 

 Smithsonian Institution for work on solar radiation and its influence on plants 

 and animals ; to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, at Heidel- 

 berg, to carry on cancer research ; to the International Auxiliary Language 

 Association for linguistic research ; to Harvard University, Columbia University, 

 Leland Stanford Junior University, Pennsylvania State College, and the Stevens 

 Institute of Technology, in support of various projects. A grant was made to 

 the National Research Council to assist in the publication of one of the volumes 

 of the " International Critical Tables." A recent grant has been made to the 

 University of California to make possible the installation of an 85-ton magnet, 

 through which it is hoped to promote the study of atomic structure. 



As the charter of the Research Corporation provides that its awards shall bo 

 made through scientific institutions, the directors have seen fit in this instance 

 to make their awards to Messrs. Douglass and Antevs through the Smithsonian 

 Institution. These awards were voted as of the fiscal year 1930. 



The awards to Doctor Douglass and Doctor Antevs are the fourth and fifth 

 of their kind made by the Research Corporation. The first, in 1925, went to 



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