4 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



provides that no dividends shall be paid and that the entire net profits shall 

 be devoted to research, all the stock being held under a stockholders' agree- 

 ment, which recites that the corporation has been organized for the purpose of 

 aiding and encouraging technical and scientific research, and not for personal 

 or individual profit. 



At the present time many discoveries are constantly being made, which un- 

 doubtedly possess a greater or less potential value, but which are literally being 

 allowed to go to waste for lack of thorough development. This is due, in some 

 cases, to the fact that the inventors are men in the service of the Government 

 or in the universities or technical schools, who are retarded either by oflBclal 

 l)ositions, lack of means, or reluctance to engage in commercial enterprises, 

 and in other cases to the fact that a discovery made incidentally in the labora- 

 tory of a manufacturing corporation does not lend itself to the particular pur- 

 pose of such corporation. True conservation demands that such by-products 

 as these shall be developed and utilized to the fullest extent of which they are 

 capable. The Research Corporation aims to supply this demand and, through 

 the cooperation of the Smithsonian Institution and the universities, to carry 

 forward the work of investigation already begun by others upon lines which 

 promise imi)ortant results and to perfect such inventions as may prove to 

 possess commercial value, thus bringing scientific institutions into closer rela- 

 tions with industrial activities and furthering the improvements of industrial 

 processes. 



The establishment of the Research Corporation was rendered im- 

 mediately possible by the acquisition, through the gift of Dr. F. G. 

 Cottrell, of the United States Bureau of Mines, and his associates, of 

 a valuable set of patents relating to the precipitation of dust, smoke, 

 and chemical fumes by the use of electrical currents. These devices 

 are in operation in several States, and are fully described in an ar- 

 ticle in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, for August, 1911. 



A number of other patents in various fields of industry have been 

 offered by officers of the Government and scientific institutions, as 

 well as by manufacturing corporations holding patents not available 

 for their own purposes, and undoubtedly there are many others, both 

 in this country and abroad, who will be glad to have their inventions 

 utilized for the benefit of scientific research. The Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution is interested in the management of this corporation through 

 the membership of the secretary in its board of directors, which is 

 composed of business and professional men, many of whom have had 

 experience in large industrial and mining enterprises. 



Tlte George W. Poore l>equest. — By the terms of the will of the 

 late George W. Poore, of Lowell, Mass., who died December 17, 1910, 

 the Smithsonian Institution becomes his residuary legatee. As men- 

 tioned in my 1010 report, the estate, estimated at about $40,000, is 

 bequeathed under the condition that the income of this sum should 

 be added to the principal until a total of $250,000 should have been 

 i-eached, and that then the income only should be used for the pur- 

 poses for which the Institution was created. The estate is still in 

 process of settlement by the executors. 



