476 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1194 



AH of the work of the Research Council that 

 touches upon Army or Navy problems is carried on 

 with the advice, cooperation or control, as the case 

 may be, of the representatives of the various de- 

 partments of the Army or Navy under which such 

 work comes. 



The council has cooperated in the establishment 

 and organization of the submarine experimental 

 work at Nahant and has also established a very ac- 

 tive submarine station at New Loudon, another at 

 San Pedro, California, and has been instrumental 

 in the organization of groups working at New 

 York, Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin. 



There has resulted a great practical advance in 

 the art of submarine detection which it is not de- 

 sirable to go into further. 



The physics committee of the council has dis- 

 tributed to various groups twenty or more large 

 problems in physics, which are being actively 

 worked upon and some of which have already been 

 solved. Among the latter are the location of air- 

 craft by sound, the development of fire control for 

 anti-aircraft guns, telephoning between airplanes, 

 protection of balloons from ignition by static 

 charges and the development of new and improved 

 methods of measuring muzzle velocities. • 



The chief officer of the signal corps of the Army 

 has asked the Eesearch Council to act as the Di- 

 vision of Science and Eesearch of the Signal Corps, 

 and in this capacity the council has organized a 

 sound ranging service in the signal corps, a new 

 meteorological service in the signal corps, and is 

 now drawing specifications for scientific instru- 

 ments to be used on airplanes. It has sent a dozen 

 of the best physicists in the country to France to 

 aid the American Expeditionary Forces with their 

 scientific knowledge and is selecting a personnel of 

 several hundred men who are to be engaged in the 

 scientific services of the Army and Navy. 



The chemistry committee has perfected an elab- 

 orate organization for the handling of aU of the 

 chemical problems which arise in the Army and in 

 the Navy, and it has distributed some 150 chem- 

 ical problems which are being attacked in the 

 chemical laboratories of the country. 



The psychology committee has presented to the 

 Secretary of War and the adjutant general a vast 

 program for the selection of officers for the Army 

 from officers' reserve camps and for the classifica- 

 tion of drafted men. In fact it has called in most 

 of the best known psychologists of the country and 

 has organized them and employment experts into 

 a large group in whose hands the War Department 

 has placed the largest responsibilities regarding 

 the examination and selection of men. 



The medical committee has enlisted the services 

 of a large number of medical men of the country 

 both in medical research problems and in the reg- 

 ular work of the sanitary corps of the Army. 



The engineering committee has contributed in no 

 small degree to the development of devices for the 

 protection of ships from submarines. It has or- 

 ganized a large group which are now working on 

 the development of steel protective devices for use 

 of the soldiers at the front, and through coopera- 

 tion with the National Advisory Committee for 

 Aeronautics it has carried on extensive and im- 

 portant researches in the development of airplanes 

 and airplane engines. 



Turning to the work of the special committees 

 of the council, the nitrate committee has made an 

 elaborate study and report which has been made 

 the basis for the expenditure by the government 

 of large sums of money upon the erection of a ni- 

 trate plant. 



The gas warfare committee has had for six 

 months 120 chemists working on the problems of 

 gas warfare and the results already attained have 

 been of the utmost importance — so important that 

 the Army and Navy have placed large appropria- 

 tions at the disposal of this committee for its re- 

 searches. 



The optical glass committee, by taking from the 

 research laboratories like the geophysical labora- 

 tory and the bureau of standards, a dozen more 

 silicate chemists and putting them directly in the 

 works of the Bausch and Lomb Company and the 

 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, has in six months ' 

 time developed in America the production of op- 

 tical glass from nothing up to 20,000 pounds a 

 month and in two mouths more this figure will have 

 been multiplied two or three fold. 



The psychiatry committee has established abroad 

 a laboratory for the study of shell shock. 



The foreign service committee, which the coun- 

 cil sent abroad at once upon the outbreak of the 

 war, was wholly responsible for the sending back 

 to this country of a French, English and Italian 

 scientific mission, which brought with them the 

 contributions which science had made to the war, 

 both in the matter of instruments and methods, and 

 unquestionably saved months of time in putting the 

 United States abreast of the European situation, 

 as regards modern scientific methods in warfare. 

 It is difficult to overestimate the stimulus to 

 American participation in the war which resulted 

 directly from the action of the Eesearch Council 

 in sending abroad at once this foreign service com- 

 mittee composed of seven of the best scientists in 

 the country. 



