826 



NA TURE 



[June 24, 1922 



Carnegie Institution of Washington.^ 



T' 



*HE year 192 1 marks the completion of the 

 twentieth year of organised research conducted 

 by the Carnegie Institution. The original aim of the 

 Founder was to give encouragement and support to 

 investigations or to constructive thought in any 

 department of science, literature, or art, and it is 

 gratifying to record the fact that at the end of this 

 second decade, the function of research as an activity 

 indispensable to civilisation and as a necessary pre- 

 requisite of progress, seems to have come into fuller 

 recognition than at any previous time in history. 

 Industrial and government agencies, as well as 

 academic interests, have given to fundamental in- 

 vestigation a high place in the list of elements essential 

 for advance. To-day one may say with confidence 

 that no investment of funds or of personal effort can 

 find a work of greater dignity and worth, or one which 

 offers a future giving clearer evidence of abundant 

 and continuing reward, than is open in the field of 

 research. 



The work of the Institution touches in one way 

 or another upon nearly all of the principal fields 

 of research, and the investigations have been very 

 fruitful. They have been not merely contributions 

 to knowledge, but they are also the basis for much 

 research of application which goes immediately into 

 human use. It is not necessary in a preliminary state- 

 ment to do more than direct attention to some of the 

 most significant results which have signalised certain 

 phases of the work of the Institution in the past year. 

 It is doubtful whether any recent discovery in the 

 physical sciences has attracted wider interest or has 

 contributed more to the ultimate possibihties of 

 astronomical and physical science than the measure- 

 ment of diameter of a fixed star carried out at Mount 

 Wilson Observatory three days after the annual 

 meeting of the Institution last year. This long- 

 desired result was made possible by many years of 

 development of plant and technique, together with 

 the extraordinary skill of Dr. A. A. Michelson and his 

 associates and the clear vision of Dr. G. E. Hale in 

 bringing together all of the elements required for this 

 particular task. Measurement of the diameter of the 

 star Betelgeuse once accomplished, the dimensions 

 of other stars followed quickly. More recently, by a 

 refinement of the original method. Dr. Michelson has 

 opened the way for corresponding observations on a 

 group of stars which seemed to be entirely out of 

 range in the first use of the interferometer on the 

 100-inch telescope. The results already achieved 

 give confirmation of much important work done by 

 other astronomers and furnish a new starting-point 

 for a great variety of investigations concerning the 

 nature of the universe. In consideration of the 

 critical problems involved, provision has been made 

 for securing assistance and co-operation of other 

 investigators, and Dr. H. N. Russell, of Princeton 

 University, who has added much to our knowledge of 

 the evolution of the stars, is now associated with Dr. 

 Michelson and others in helping to solve the special 

 problems to which Mount Wilson Observatory has 

 given attention. 



A significant event in the operations of the Institu- 

 tion is the completion within this year of a survey 

 of the seas of the world by. the non-magnetic ship 

 Carnegie. Launched in 1909, this unique vessel has 

 voyaged nearly 300,000 miles, covering the principal 

 areas of the great oceans and securing data on mag- 

 netic conditions previously unavailable, which, with 

 those obtained by concurrent studies on land, give a 



> Extracts from the Report of the President of the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington, Year-book No. 20, 192 1. 



NO. 2747, VOL. 109] 



map of magnetic variations not hitherto possible. 

 With the completion of the year's cruise by the Carnegie, 

 and the summing up of its results, attention may bej 

 directed more particularly to land observations, toj 

 critical studies of terrestrial and atmospheric elec 

 tricity, to experimental studies bearing upon the 

 nature of magnetism, and to the assembly and inter- 

 pretation of the great mass of data made available from 

 all sources through many years of field work. 



Beginning with the year 1921, the Department of 

 Experimental Evolution and the Eugenics Record 

 Office have come to function as an administrative unit 

 known as the Department of Genetics. By this 

 change, the biological studies of inheritance, based 

 upon investigation of many groups of plants and 

 animals, are brought to bear more directly on studies 

 of human genetics conducted through the Eugenics 

 Record Office. Important as knowledge of heredity 

 is in its application to the development of the animals 

 and plants which contribute to our needs, there is no 

 group of questions more significant in the complicated 

 organisation of human society than those concerning 

 the meaning and the possibility of direction or control 

 of inheritance in man. Without full understanding 

 of the biological factors concerned, it might appear 

 that intelligence and social organisation have brought 

 relatively large opportunity for degeneration. On 

 the other hand, adequate understanding of the 

 principles governing the course of descent may give 

 to mankind opportunity for more rapid and more 

 advantageous development than has been known in 

 the past lines of evolution of other organisms. 



During the past year a modest chemical laboratory 

 has been erected for the Department of Botanical 

 Research at Carmel, California. This department has 

 carried its work farther into the field of physical and 

 chemical research in the effort to secure more informa- 

 tion concerning the basis of plant activities. The new 

 laboratory offers improved opportunity for funda- 

 mental work on photo-synthesis or the chemistry of 

 compounds arising under the influence of light, and 

 it is hoped that with present facilities a nearer 

 approach to the solution of this difficult but funda- 

 mental problem in the physiology of plants may be 

 obtained. 



An important project in the purely humanistic 

 field is that concerning the ancient Maya civilisation 

 of Central America. The expedition of 1921, led into 

 this region by Dr. S. G. Morley, has secured most 

 significant new material by the study of the ancient 

 monuments and the excavation of building sites. The 

 story of this people contributes much that may 

 become critical or determinative in the interpretation 

 of early American history ; the great bulk of this 

 record still remains unread. In the past year the 

 Institution has had the benefit of effective co- 

 operation in this work by Mr. William Gates, 

 whose study of both the modern and the ancient 

 Maya language involves lines of investigation which 

 should relate themselves closely to the archaeological 

 studies. 



The more noteworthy of the allotments made by 

 the Executive Committee during the past year were 

 as follows : 14,000/. for the Department of Botanical 

 Research, 25,000/. for the Department of Genetics, 

 28,000/. for the Geophysical Laboratory, 42,000/. for 

 the Mount Wilson Observatory, and 46,000/. for the 

 Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. 



In addition, there were minor grants aggregating 

 30,000/., and 20,000/. was allotted for the production 

 of publications. The total allocations amounted to 

 more than 250,000/. 



