PlBEUAET 13, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



227 



pletion of a circumnavigation voyage of 

 about three and a half years' duration and 

 of courses aggregating upwards of 80,000 

 miles, by the non-magnetic ship Carnegie. 

 Experience with this ship shows that a 

 magnetic survey of the oceans is a some- 

 what less formidable undertaking than a 

 magnetic survey of the continents, for the 

 latter are still, on the whole, less accessible 

 than the former since the advent of this 

 non-magnetic nautical observatory. Great 

 credit is due to Mr. W. J. Peters, com- 

 mander of this ship, for assiduous atten- 

 tion not only to her safety, but also to the 

 effectiveness of her mission in the imme- 

 diate interests of the world's navigation 

 and in the more important, though less 

 obvious, interests of terrestrial physics. 



Reference was made in the report of a year 

 ago to the construction of a fireproof office 

 building at Pasadena, California, for the 

 staff of the solar observatory. This build- 

 ing has been occupied during the past year, 

 and its characteristics are shown by illus- 

 trations in photo-perspective and in plan 

 in the current year book. In addition to 

 supplying adequate quarters for the de- 

 partmental staff and safe storage for the 

 extensive records of the observatory, it 

 furnishes in its sub-basement a constant- 

 temperature room in which will be installed 

 a dividing engine designed especially to 

 rule diffraction gratings for use with the 

 other optical apparatus of the observatory. 

 Such an engine has been constructed at 

 the shops of the observatory during the 

 past year by Mr. Jacomini, mechanician 

 of the departmental staff, in collaboration 

 with Dr. John A. Anderson, of Johns 

 Hopkins University, who has supplied tests 

 of precision which have led to a degree of 

 perfection not hitherto attained in this 

 excessively difficult and delicate kind of 

 construction. It is gratifying to report 

 also in this connection that the glass disk 



for the 100-inch telescope, which a year 

 ago had developed distortions indicating 

 defective stability, is now meeting all 

 essential requirements and giving promise 

 of an optical surface equal to, if not supe- 

 rior to, that of the 60-inch mirror. Ac- 

 cordingly, work of construction for the 

 foundation and for the mounting of this 

 100-inch telescope is now proceeding as 

 rapidly as the conditions of safety and of 

 efiieiency in such a novel undertaking will 

 permit. 



OUTLINE OP RESEARCHES OP THE YEAR 



As is abundantly indicated in previous 

 reports, and as is evident to any deliberate 

 reader of the bewildering miscellanies pre- 

 sented in the year books, the diversity and 

 the complexity of the investigations going 

 forward under the auspices of the institu- 

 tion preclude anything like a clear and 

 complete summary of their scope, progress 

 and prospective value within the limits of 

 an administrative report. The general 

 reader must take it for granted (provi- 

 sionally at least) that these investigations 

 are in the main worth undertaking and 

 thus await the verdict of time through the 

 aid of a growing critical public opinion; 

 for in proportion as such investigations 

 are fundamental, and hence worth carry- 

 ing on, they will be difficult of exposition 

 and more difficult of comprehension. Con- 

 cerning this matter there appears to be 

 prevalent a popular fallacy to the effect 

 that writers untrammeled by competent 

 scholarship, but who possess verbal facil- 

 ity, are better qualified to expound a tech- 

 nical subject than those who have devel- 

 oped it or contributed thereto; and along 

 with this fallacy there is frequently 

 coupled another to the effect that ours is 

 an age of narrowing specialization, whose 

 evil effects may be remedied by resort to 

 literary views of phenomena and by re- 



