446 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 847 



respiration apparatus for dogs, and many- 

 improvements in the calorimeter section 

 of the laboratory have been made. Several 

 pieces of apparatus have been acquired 

 also by purchase abroad, and the eiBiciency 

 of the machine shop has been improved by 

 the addition of a precision lathe. 



The investigations under way at the lab- 

 oratory and outlined in the director's re- 

 port are too numerous and too technical to 

 permit further abstract or paraphrase. It 

 may suffice here, therefore, to cite one of the 

 most important of these investigations in 

 which decided progress has already been 

 made, but which may yet require many 

 years to complete, namely, the nature and 

 meaning of metabolism in diabetes. In the 

 researches on this recondite problem the 

 director has thus far had the good fortune 

 to enlist the active cooperation of Dr. 

 Elliott P. Joslin, through whose aid espe- 

 cially it has been possible to use the labora- 

 tory's apparatus in detailed observations 

 and measurements of a number of diabetic 

 patients during the past two years. 



The preliminary results of the research 

 just referred to were regarded as so im- 

 portant as to justify prompt public an- 

 nouncement, and they have accordingly 

 been printed during the year in Publica- 

 tion No. 136. Interest in the laboratory 

 and its work is now so widespread that 

 another volume, describing in detail the 

 respiration calorimeters and their applica- 

 tions, by the director and Mr. Thorne M. 

 Carpenter, has been issued as Publication 

 No. 123. Many shorter publications from 

 members of the research staff have ap- 

 peared during the year in current journals 

 and in the proceedings of learned societies. 



The rapid growth in equipment and 

 facilities and the equally rapid progress in 

 the production of capital results from the 

 researches at this observatory are at once 

 sources of surprise and gratification to the 



astronomical world. Work during the past 

 year has gone on with little diminution of 

 vigor, although illness of the director has 

 forced him to relinquish his activities for 

 a considerable portion of the time. He has 

 recently gone abroad for a season and the 

 departmental report for the past year has 

 been prepared by Mr. Walter S. Adams, 

 now acting director of the observatory. 



The work of this establishment is now so 

 extensive and so varied that it is somewhat 

 difficult to summarize even in its salient as- 

 pects. In addition to the observatory 

 proper, with its four principal telescopes 

 and much auxiliary equipment on Mount 

 Wilson, there are the physical laboratory 

 and the instrument shops at Pasadena, 

 along with special divisions devoted to 

 the work of computations and construc- 

 tion respectively. To become conversant, 

 therefore, with the complexity of activities 

 of this department, one must read the 

 somewhat lengthy but relatively condensed 

 annual reports of the director. 



By way of equipment several large 

 pieces of apparatus for the new tower 

 telescope, for the 60-inch telescope, and for 

 the 100-inch grinding machine have been 

 made at the shops. The towers for the new 

 150-foot tower telescope, begun a year ago, 

 are now finished along with the well, 75 

 feet deep in the rock below, which forms a 

 part of the telescope tube of this novel in- 

 strument, now essentially complete except 

 for its spectroscopic attachments still under 

 construction at the shops. Some prelimi- 

 nary trials made recently with this instru- 

 ment indicate that it will fulfil the san- 

 guine expectations entertained in respect 

 to its capacity. 



At the time of the annual meeting of the 

 board of trustees a year ago "The Monas- 

 tery," a wooden building on Mount Wil- 

 son supplying quarters for the resident 

 members of the observatory staff, was com- 



