230 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 998 



Gerould have pursued investigations in 

 collaboration with this staff. One of the 

 most important of these cooperative enter- 

 prises is the joint investigation of Dr. 

 Blakeslee and Dr. Grortner on the low 

 organisms called mucors, from which it ap- 

 pears that sex-differentiation in these or- 

 ganisms has a determinate physical basis. 

 This conclusion appears to bear a close 

 relation to similar fundamental conclu- 

 sions reached independently in other lines 

 of work by our research associates, Dr. 

 Reichert and Dr. Osborne. 



The exigencies of his experimental work 

 going forward at the departmental station 

 have prevented Dr. Shull from completing 

 the manuscript of his account of the work 

 of Luther Burbank. It has been arranged, 

 therefore, that he shall spend some months 

 abroad, beginning with October, 1913, in 

 order that uninterrupted attention to this 

 manuscript may enable him to finish it 

 without undue delay. The importance of 

 the biochemical laboratory, in charge of 

 Dr. Gortner in connection with the depart- 

 ment, has been well attested during the 

 year by the aid he has rendered in the 

 complex studies evidently essential to 

 further advances in the problems of plant 

 and animal evolution. The more adequate 

 provision for this laboratory adjunct fur- 

 nished by the new departmental buildings, 

 already referred to, will make it practica- 

 ble to iitilize still more advantageously the 

 highly developed qualitative and quantita- 

 tive methods and data of the older science 

 of chemistry. 



the department. It is estimated by him 

 that six of the divisions will be able to 

 present final reports within the next fiscal 

 year. These are the divisions of population 

 and immigration, in charge of Professor 

 Willcox ; mining, in charge of Mr. Parker ; 

 transportation, in charge of Professor 

 Meyer; domestic and foreign commerce, in 

 charge of Professor Johnson; labor move- 

 ment, in charge of Professor Commons, and 

 social legislation, in charge of the chair- 

 man. Delays due to the requirements of 

 their primary occupations, to ill health or 

 misfortune in the case of some collabor- 

 ators, and to demands of public service in 

 other cases, have prevented the remaining 

 divisions from bringing their work to a 

 similarly forward state. 



The chairman again calls attention in 

 his report to the desirability of reorganiz- 

 ing this department and placing it on a 

 basis similar to that of all other depart- 

 ments of research of the institution. As to 

 the appropriateness of this recommenda- 

 tion, there now appears to be no dissent, 

 either within or outside the department. 

 It is hoped, therefore, that such a reor- 

 ganization may be consummated as soon as 

 the work now in hand may be completed in 

 accord with the original plan, if it should 

 not appear advantageous to make the ob- 

 viously desirable change at an earlier date. 

 There is no doubt that the field of oppor- 

 tunity for effective pioneer work by such 

 a department is in great need of present- 

 day cultivation and that it extends indefi- 

 nitely into the future. 



DEPABTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY 



Substantial progress toward completion 

 of the several contributions from the twelve 

 divisions of this department to their pro- 

 jected basis for a social and economic his- 

 tory of the United States is reported by 

 Professor Henry W. Farnam, chairman of 



THE GEOPHYSICAL LABORATOBY 



The preliminary stages in the develop- 

 ment of this hitherto unique establishment 

 may now be said to have passed, since labo- 

 ratories similarly equipped and for like 

 purposes are now being set up under other 

 auspices. That the merits of the methods, 



