Maech 24, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



443 



studies of the changes which organisms 

 undergo in dark eaves and in deep waters, 

 an artificial cave has been added to the 

 basement of the laboratory, and the work 

 of experimentation by means of this ad- 

 junct has been assigned to Dr. A. M. 

 Banta, whose early investigations in this 

 line were printed by the institution some 

 years ago in Publication No. 67. 



In order to meet the increasing needs of 

 the department for land for the cultivation 

 of plants and the breeding of animals, the 

 institution purchased in January, 1910, a 

 tract of 21 acres of very desirable land 

 lying about a mile east of the laboratory. 

 It may be noted also that Goose Island, in 

 Long Island Sound, acquired for the de- 

 partment a year ago, has already been put 

 to good use in experiments on plants and 

 animals in a state of isolation. 



It is a source of pleasure to record that 

 two friends of the department have shown 

 their appreciation of the director's enter- 

 prise by gifts which will greatly aid him in 

 the prosecution of his work: one has sup- 

 plied a wharf and a shelter house on Goose 

 Island; the other has furnished funds es- 

 sential to establish, near to but independ- 

 ently of the laboratory, an office for the 

 collection and interpretation, under the 

 direction of Dr. Davenport, of data bear- 

 ing on human heredity. . . . 



The principal steps which have been 

 necessary and in large degree preliminary 

 in the development of the work of the 

 geophysical laboratory are recounted with 

 instructive particularity by the director in 

 his report for the current year. They are 

 the steps required to pass from a merely 

 descriptive knowledge of rock formation to 

 a knowledge based on definite measure- 

 ments. Briefly stated, these steps are four 

 in number, namely: provision for correct 

 temperature determinations over the entire 

 range involved in the processes of rock for- 



mation; provision for like determinations 

 of the chemical reactions of these processes ; 

 provision for precise microscopic, optical 

 and crystallographic measurements, and 

 provision for the quantitative applications 

 of high pressures to rock masses and rock 

 constituents. 



In supplying the desiderata just indi- 

 cated for its own special work, the labora- 

 tory has already achieved results of prime 

 importance also to many other fields of 

 physical and chemical science. Thus, two 

 contributions of great import to general 

 physics and chemistry have been brought 

 out during the past year. The first of 

 these is a determinate extension of the 

 scale of temperature measures from about 

 300° C. to about 1,600° C. This is a fitting 

 supplement to the classic work on thermom- 

 etry begun more than thirty years ago 

 under the auspices of the International 

 Bureau of Weights and Measures. It must 

 take rank, in fact, with the fundamental 

 advances in the technique of thermometry. 

 The other contribution is a determination 

 of the system of compounds which may 

 arise in combinations of the three most im- 

 portant oxides entering into the composi- 

 tion of rocks, namely, silica, lime and 

 alumina. This system is of special eco- 

 nomic interest, since it includes, among 

 many other compounds, the hitherto much 

 studied but baffling Portland cement. The 

 complexity of the investigations required 

 to analyze this system is indicated by the 

 facts that it involves the interaction of 

 fourteen minerals and the formation of 

 sixteen ternary eutectics, or substances 

 whose melting-points are lower than those 

 of the primary constituents. 



Many other important investigations are 

 outlined in the director's report and the 

 productivity of the laboratory may be in- 

 ferred from his citation and review of 

 twenty-five publications emanating from 



