66 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1438 



Biver, to be reimbursed by the revenues from 

 leasing the power privileges incident thereto. 



4. It is recommended that any state interested 

 in this development shall have the right at its 

 election to contribute an equitable part of the 

 coat of the construction of the reservoir and re- 

 ceive for its contribution a proportionate share 

 of power at cost to be determined by the secre- 

 tary of the interior. 



5. It is recommended that the secretary of the 

 interior be empowered after full hearing of all 

 concerned to allot the various applicants their 

 due proportion of the power privileges and to 

 allocate the cost and benefits of a highUne canal. 



6. It is recommended that every development 

 hereafter authorized be required in both construc- 

 tion and operation to give priority of right and 

 use: 



First, to river regulation and flood control. 



Second, to use of storage water for irrigation. 



Third, to development of power. 



These recommendations liave been embodied 

 in a House bill by Representative Swing of 

 California, introduced April 25, 1922. This 

 bill provides for an advance of $70,000,000 to 

 the reclamation fund to be used for the 

 construction of the Boulder Canyon dam and 

 the Imperial Valley system to be repaid to the 

 general treasury in accordance with the 

 Reclamation Act of 1902. 



F. E. Weymouth 



U. S. Reclamation Service 



THE ELECTOR PLAN FOR THE AD- 

 MINISTRATION OF RESEARCH 

 FUNDSi 



One of the most effective uses of wealth for 

 the good of mankind lies in the wise encourage- 

 ment of the search for truth through sustained 

 scientific investigation. 



A history of the methods followed through 

 the last two hundred years reveals an astonish- 



1 The present note is a skeletal outline of a pre- 

 liminary report prepared by the writer as chair- 

 man of the Committee on the Stabilizing of Sci- 

 entific Funds. The committee is continued for 

 further work on this problem and welcomes dis- 

 cussion and criticism of the plan from those who 

 are interested in the allocation of funds in trust 

 from wills, bequests, or grants for the encourage- 

 ment of scientific investigation and service. 



ing record of unwise provisions in wills and 

 bequests and shows that only in the last few 

 years have economic and legal authorities de- 

 voted systematic efforts to the organization of 

 permanent trust funds given for benevolent 

 purposes. 



During the last few years, the Community 

 Trust movement has developed a valuable type 

 of organization. The result of this plan has 

 been most gratifying. To cite a single exam- 

 ple, in the first six years of its existence, the 

 Cleveland Foundation accumulated a fund of 

 more than one hundred million dollars. 



The specific interests of research in science 

 have not yet enjoyed any such encoui-agement 

 or facilitation through the organization of gen- 

 eral public interest. With but slight excep- 

 tions, donors are left to hit or miss methods of 

 organization and wifftiout appropriate encour- 

 agement or aid. 



It would therefore seem timely to present an 

 outline of a method of organization which shall 

 be safe and pennanent, flexible and adjustable 

 to changing conditions, simple and economic of 

 operation, and inviting as a means of disposing 

 of wealth in the service of science and the 

 establishment of a monument to commemorate 

 some cherished object or ideal. 



The plan should be devised to meet the 

 changing conditions of the times, conceding to 

 each succeeding generation the largest measure 

 of ability to administer its own affairs, and 

 should afford the opportunity for the main- 

 tenance of some broad, scientific project in 

 which the donor is interested, while, at the same 

 time, granting great flexibility in the meeting 

 of unforeseen future contingencies. It should 

 avoid speciflcally those methods of organization 

 which history has shown to be undesirable, par- 

 ticularly as to methods of perpetuating the 

 governing board, the designation of objects to 

 be served, and the safeguarding of the capital. 

 It should utilize legal and economic principles 

 which in recent investigations have been pio- 

 nounced sound. 



The approval and promulgation of some 

 plan by recognized scientific bodies should give 

 a new significance and opportunity to the own- 

 ership of wealth and should furnish an incen- 

 tive for generosity in the disposal of a fortune, 



