APRIL 22, 1915| 
NATURE. 221 



& 
Department of Botanical Research 8,428 
Department of Economics and Sociology 1,000 
Department of Experimental Evolution ... 12,696 
Geophysical Laboratory 30 17,100 
Department of Historical Research 6,220 
Department of Marine Biology ... he) 8,830 
Department of Meridian Astronomy 5,030 
Nutrition Laboratory ... 9,159 
Division of Publications 2,000 
Solar Observatory 44,178 
Department of Terrestrial M: agnietism 31,481 
Researches in Embryology . 5,380 
Total 146,508 
The following extracts from the résumé of the in- 
vestigations of the year included in the report of the 
president, Dr. R. S. Woodward, will serve to indicate 
the nature and extent of the scientific work accom- 
plished during the year. 
Although the greater part of the work of the De- 
partment of Botanical Research is carried on, at its 
principal laboratory at Tucson, Arizona, it is essential 
to a comprehensive study of desert plant life to ex- 
plore distant as well as adjacent arid regions. ‘Thus, 
having published during the past year the results of 
an elaborate investigation of the region of the Salton 
Sea, the department is now turning attention to 
similar desert basins, of which there are several in 
the Western States that have been studied hitherto in 
their geological rather than botanical aspects. These 
researches are entailing also many applications of the 
allied physical sciences not heretofore invoked to any 
marked extent in aid of botanical science. Hence 
there results properly a diversity of work quite beyond 
the implications of botany in the earlier, but now 
quite too narrow, sense of the word. The facilities of 
the Desert Laboratory have been enlarged during the 
year by the completion.and equipment of a specially 
designed small building for studies in phyto-chemistry, 
which has been proved to play a highly significant 
réle in desert life. 
The observational, statistical, and physical methods 
applied by the Department of Experimental Evolution 
are constantly adding to the sum of facts and of in- 
ductions essential to advances in biological knowledge. 
The range of application extends from the lowest 
organisms, like fungi, up to the highest, as typified 
in the race to which the investigators themselves 
belong. Thus, during the past year, observations and 
experiments have been made on mucors, plants, 
pigeons, poultry, and seeds, while the director has 
continued his fruitful statistical studies in the rela- 
tively new field of departures from normality in man- 
kind. The variety of agencies employed in this wide 
range of inquiry now includes a permanent staff of 
about twenty members and a_ physical equipment 
enlarged during the year by the completion of an 
additional laboratory and a power-house. Early in the 
vear the facilities of the department were increased 
by the successful transfer, from Chicago to Cold 
Spring Harbour, of the remarkable collection of 
pedigree pigeons recently acquired by the institution 
from the estate of Prof. C. O. Whitman. 
An instructive example of the favourable progress, 
which may be confidently expected: in any field of re- 
search when entered by an adequately manned and 
equipped department devoted solely thereto, is afforded 
by the experience of the Geophysical Laboratory. In 
less than a decade this establishment has not only 
accomplished the formidable task of constructing the 
necessary apparatus and of preparing many of the 
pure minerals concerned, but has already begun the 
processes of analysis and synthesis which are leading 
NO. 2373, VOL. 95] 
additions to our knowledge of rock and 
; mineral formations found in. the earth’s crust. 
Among the problems under investigation, one of 
immediate economic as well as of great theoretical 
interest may be cited here by reason especially of the 
fact that funds for its execution have been supplied 
by industrial sources; this is the problem of the 
* secondary enrichment of copper ores,’’ and _ the 
success attained in its treatment demonstrates the 
practicability of advantageous co-operation between 
the laboratory. and industrial organisations without 
restriction to scientific procedure and publicity. The 
section of the director’s report devoted to this subject 
should be of special interest, to geologists and to 
mining engineers as well as to copper-mining indus- 
tries. A more comprehensive idea of the productive 
activities of the laboratory may be gained from its 
publications, which embrace forty-nine titles of papers 
which have appeared in current journals or are in 
the press, many of them having been published in 
German as well as in English. 
In accordance with plans recommended by the 
director of the Department of Marine Biology and 
approved by the trustees in 1912, an expedition to 
Torres Straits, Australia, was undertaken in the latter 
part of the preceding year. Early in September, 1913, 
the director and six collaborators arrived at Thursday 
Island in the Straits, expecting to use this relatively 
accessible island as a base of explorations; but it was 
soon found advantageous to proceed to Maér Island, 
one of the Murray group, about 120 miles east-north- 
east, and near to the outer limit of the Great Barrier 
Reef. Here a temporary laboratory was set up in 
the local courthouse and jail, generously placed at Dr. 
Mayer’s disposal by the British authorities. The 
region proved to be one rich in coral reefs and in 
marine fauna for the work contemplated. Observa- 
tions and experiments securing gratifying results were 
carried out during the months of September and 
October, 1913. In addition to the critical data 
secured by Dr. Mayer with respect to the corals about 
Maér Island, for comparison especially with corre- 
sponding data from the corals of Florida waters, 
observations and materials for important contributions 
to zoology were collected by each of his collaborators. 
On returning to America from the southern hemi- 
sphere, the director was engaged, during April and 
May, in two minor expeditions with the departmental 
vessel Anton Dohrn. The first of these was in aid 
of the researches of Dr. Paul Bartsch, on cerions, and 
required a cruise along the Florida Keys from Miami 
to Tortugas and return. The second expedition was 
in aid especially of Dr. T. W. Vaughan, long associ- 
ated with the department in studies of corals and re- 
lated deposits, and required a cruise from Miami, 
Florida, to the Bahamas and return. It appears that 
during its first decade forty-nine investigators have 
made use of the Tortugas Laboratory, twenty-eight 
of these having returned two or more times, making 
a total of 108 visits to this relatively inaccessible centre 
of research. Of the publications emanating from the 
department, sixty have been published by the institu- 
tion, while upwards of forty have been published 
under other auspices. 
The activities of the Department of Meridian Astro- 
metry are concentrated on the derivation’ of stellar 
positions for the comprehensive catalogue in prepara- 
tion, on supplementary measurements of stellar co- 
ordinates with the meridian circle of the Dudley 
Observatorv. and on investigations of residual stellar 
motions. The latter have now become the most 
important element in the definition of stellar positions 
by. reason of the extraordinary recent progress in 
sidereal astronomy, to which the department has con- 
tributed in large degree. Thus, along with the form- 
\ to extensive 



