OCTOBKR 24, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



647 



investigators in this and other countries are 

 already, in some cases at least, more numer- 

 ous than can possibly be granted, and if 

 we mistake not their number is annually 

 increasing. 



It seems scarcely necessary to make very 

 exhaustive search for the exceptional 

 genius, for already there are hundreds of 

 investigators of fair training and ability 

 who are more or less hampered for want 

 of time and means to carry on and com- 

 plete original work already begun. 



While in physical science work has to be 

 carried on in fixed, permanent, elaborately 

 and expensively equipped laboratories 

 the case is somewhat different in the natural 

 sciences. The geologist, paleontologist and 

 biologist need to make collections, to travel, 

 to work in marine or fresh-water labora- 

 tories, and in laboratories for experimental 

 evolution studies. Hence funds are needed 

 for traveling expenses, for preparing and 

 setting up specimens, for artists, assistants 

 in breeding and making other experiments, 

 for microscopic apparatus, for aid in pre- 

 paring bibliographies, and in making trans- 

 lations of articles and memoirs in foreign 

 languages not generally taught or studied, 

 as Russian, etc. Finally the Carnegie In- 

 stitution might lend its aid in publishing, 

 with suitable illustrations, the results of 

 such investigations. 



These are the lines along which it ap- 

 pears to us this noble benefaction will ac- 

 complish the greatest results. 



Prom the writer 's point of view the press- 

 ing needs in pure, unapplied biology, and 

 for which pecuniary help is urgently re- 

 quired, are the following: Further re- 

 searches in the life-histories of the lowest 

 organisms, in the growth and metamor- 

 phoses of insects, Crustacea, molluscs and of 

 the lower vertebrates, in temperature ex- 

 periments in the line of the splendid re- 

 searches of Dallinger, Weismann, Stand- 

 fuss, MerrifieldjDixey and others, who have 



wellnigh demonstrated the actual process 

 of species, variety and race-making; in ex- 

 tended researches on the problems of vari- 

 ation, heredity, telegony, phylogeny and 

 zoogeography. To carry out such re- 

 searches as these we need much larger 

 grants than any which have yet been 

 possible. 



To further and carry on such investi- 

 gations, there is not yet needed an elaborate 

 corps of officials and workers localized at 

 Washington, whose climate is unfavorable 

 for research nearly a third of the year, but 

 the appointments of trustees or committees 

 who shall make the grants, leaving to the 

 investigators in all parts of this or any 

 other country the opportunity of carrying 

 on original scientific work. 



A. S. Packard. 



I READ with much interest the article on 

 the above subject in Science of September 

 19. I agree with many of Professor Cat- 

 tell 's views, but I feel very strongly that the 

 keynote of the activity of the Institution 

 should be, in the words of the founder, 

 'To discover the exceptional man in every 

 department of study whenever and wher- 

 ever found, inside or outside of schools, 

 and enable him to make the work for which 

 he seems specially designed his life work.' 



Whenever the directors depart from this 

 wise policy it seems to me the step will be 

 a .backward one. The best way in my 

 opinion to stimulate research is not to en- 

 dow or build laboratories or institutions 

 of any kind, but to endow competent men. 

 Not elaborate apparatus is the prime nec- 

 essity, biit the mind to understand what is 

 seen. The fall of an apple may suggest 

 to a Newton a great generalization, but he 

 needs the time and the opportunity to 

 think and work out the law in his own 

 way. 



My idea is that men seeking en- 

 dowment for research should present their 



