THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 435 



Council commits itself are based upon a scientific concensus 

 of opinion such as has never before been available in this 

 country. 



The second consideration, and one of perhaps equal impor- 

 tance, is that the Council in its effort to stimulate and promote 

 research has found one of its largest fields in the development 

 of cooperative research enterprises, for which there has also 

 been hitherto no adequate national provision. This cooperation 

 may occur as between individual scientists working in the same 

 field, for example, physics or chemistry, as between scientists 

 in different fields, as between research organizations like uni- 

 versities and government bureaus, as between state agencies or 

 state and federal agencies, and finally, as between the con- 

 sumers, so to speak, of research represented by the interests of 

 commerce and industry. Every one of the great fundamental 

 problems confronting modern society leads out in the effort to 

 solve it into a large group of related but often distinct sciences. 

 For example, the problem of fuels is in part one of chemistry, 

 in part one of geology; in some portions of the world one of 

 forestry, in part one of transportation, etc. Food production, 

 distribution, and consumption similarly involve a wide range 

 of scientific problems, partly zoological, partly botanical and 

 agricultural, partly chemical, partly bacteriological, etc. 

 v The organization of the Council is peculiarly adapted to per- 

 mit the easy assemblage of groups of competent scientists to deal 

 with such fundamental issues as these, with which no single 

 government agency and no other single scientific agency is at 

 the moment at all competent to cope. One or two illustrations 

 of the kind of thing the scientific Divisions of the Council are 

 attempting to accomplish may be permitted. 



We may take one instance from the field of cooperation 

 among scientists and one from that of cooperation among the 

 users of scientific research in the industries. The cases are 

 chosen to exhibit the possibilities of cooperation, because it is 

 at that point that our present national organization of research 

 is most defective, and the need for an agency such as the 



