410 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. liSO 



department from public funds amounted to 

 £338,552, against £427,432 in tlie previous year. 



For tlie current year this expenditure is esti- 

 mated at £342,641— nearly £85,000 less than in 

 1920-21, though about £40,000 of the reduction 

 is accounted for by the government decision 

 that research work undertaken directly for the 

 tighting services at Khe National Physical Lab- 

 oratory shall be a charge on the votes of those 

 departments and not on the research depart- 

 ment's vote. 



While the council deplore the necessity for 

 this reduction of expenditure, with the conse- 

 quent slowing down of the research program, 

 they realize that the check is less injurious now 

 than if it had come at a later stage, because a 

 st-eady policy in the matter of research is more 

 conducive to success than the provision of 

 larger sums of money without the assurance of 

 their continuance. The5' refer with special sat- 

 isfaction to the report of the Geddes committee, 

 which stated: "We are of opinion that the 

 activities of this department have been minute- 

 ly examined with a view to obtaining a reduc- 

 tion of expenditure, and we are unable to rec- 

 ommend any further reduction beyond what 

 has been effected." 



The second section of the report also deals 

 with the question of expenditure, and its intro- 

 duction contains short notes by the Advisory 

 Council on each of the activities of the depart- 

 ment, intended to show the necessity for their 

 continuance. It goes on to discuss the present 

 position and future prospects of the research 

 associations connected with the department. Of 

 these, twenty-four have now received licenses 

 from the Board of Trade, and twenty-two are 

 in active operation. In addition, three other 

 industries have the possibility of forming such 

 organizations under immediate consideration, 

 and preliminary negotiations are taking place 

 with several others. Several examples are given 

 of the economies and improvements in practice 

 that have resulted from the work of these asso- 

 ciations. 



The report proceeds to describe the work 

 that has been done for national pm-poses, in- 

 cluding the work of the coordinating research 

 boards, the research undertaken in the various 

 research institutions belonging to the depart- 

 ment, and certain investigations undertaken for 



the department elsewhere. There is also a 

 brief account of the development of research 

 for other parts of the empire, reference being 

 made to the Empire Cotton Growing Corpora- 

 tion, the Colonial Research Committee, and the 

 West Indian Agricultural College, for the last 

 of which temporary buildings and laboratories 

 are being prepared in Trinidad. 



Steady progress is reported in the direction 

 of closer cooperation betrsveen the scientific 

 work of the various government departments, 

 represented on the coordination boards, and an 

 increasing tendency is noted on the part of the 

 service departments to enlist the cooperation of 

 outside bodies and to arrange for the open pub- 

 lication of the results of their work, when these 

 are of general scientific and industrial impor- 

 tance. 



A general survey follows of the work of vari- 

 ous institutions under the direct control of the 

 department, including the National Physical 

 Laboratory, the Geological Survey, the Fuel 

 Research Board, the Deep and Hot Mines Re- 

 search Committee, the Building Research Com- 

 mittee, the Food Investigation Board, and the 

 Forest Products Research Board. 



The last part of the report deals with certain 

 independent institutions and specific researches 

 which have been aided by the department, and 

 with the grants made to individual research 

 workers and students. As regards the latter, 

 544 applications for grants were considered, 

 against 333 in the preceding year, and 280 

 awards were made, against 245. The bulk of 

 the applications for the academic year 1922-23 

 have been received, and already it is clear that 

 they will at least equal in number those received 

 last year. The expenditure proposed under 

 this head for 1922-23 is £50,000, against an 

 estimate of £47,000 for the year ending on the 

 thirtieth of September. 



PEKING UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE 

 The year 1921, the seventh of the work of 

 the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller 

 Foundation, was marked by the completion of 

 the main buildings of the Peking Union Med- 

 ical College, the only institution for which tlie 

 China Medical Board has thus far assumed 

 complete financial responsibility. 



It is hoped, according to the report of Dr. 



