MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 13 



REPORT OF THE STURGIS HOOPER PROFESSOR OF 



GEOLOGY. 



By Reginald A. Daly. 





Each year routine work as chairman of the Department of 

 Geology and Geography consumes a larger proportion of the 

 writer's time, so that opportunity for research, the first duty of the 

 Sturgis Hooper Professor, is being seriously lessened. Instruc- 

 tion was given in courses Geology 4 and 20c, during the past year. 



The winter months were largely engaged: on the completion 

 and publication of a paper on the petrography of the Pacific 

 Islands; on a general study of rock metamorphism, with special 

 reference to a classification of metamorphic processes; and on the 

 perfecting of a design for a thermograph, intended to facilitate 

 accurate, rapid, and therefore economical, exploration of ocean 

 depths. 



Since 1901, when the writer conducted a course on Oceanography 

 at this Museum, the problem of perfecting such an instrument and 

 the extreme need of improving on the reversing-thermometer 

 method now used in deep-sea investigation, have been in mind. 

 After prolonged study of the various methods already employed 

 or suggested for thermographic record, a general plan of construc- 

 tion for a photographic instrument was outlined and presented to 

 Profs. P. W. Bridgman and H. N. Davis for criticism. With their 

 approval, the problem was then turned over to Dr. Harry Clark, 

 Instructor in Physics. With great care and thoroughness, he has 

 succeeded in designing an instrument which bids fair to solve the 

 difficult problem. To help in defraying the cost of Dr. Clark's 

 honorarium, of drafting, and of manufacturing the first instru- 

 ment, the National Academy of Sciences has voted the sum of one 

 thousand dollars from the Bache Fund. To Prof. A. G. Webster 

 of Clark University, consultant member of the Bache Fund com- 

 mittee, and to the Academy as a whole, special gratitude is due 

 for such generous assistance and for interest in the investigation. 

 The instrument is being constructed and it is hoped that it will 

 be ready for practical testing by June 1, 1917. 



