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been  promised,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  full  amount 
desired  will  be  forthcoming  in  a short  time. 
The  selection  of  the  Hawaiian  volcanoes  as  objects  of  study  has 
been  determined  upon  in  consequence  of  their  peculiar  fitness  for 
this  purpose.  Their  accessibility,  the  consistency  of  their  lava, 
their  contour  and  extent,  the  constancy  of  their  movements,  and 
their  relative  safety  alike  combine  to  make  them  suitable  for  this 
purpose. 
In  order  to  insure  the  requisite  local  assistance  to  the  proposed 
institution  a committee  consisting  of  Messrs.  L.  A.  Thurston, 
J.  A.  Kennedy  and  J.  F.  Morgan  has  been  appointed.  A com- 
plete statement  of  the  work  proposed  has  been  published  and  is 
here  given  in  full : 
THE  PROPOSITION. 
The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  one  of  the  leading 
scientific  institutions  of  the  world,  has  determined  to  establish, 
somewhere,  a station  to  keep  a continuous  record  of  earth  move- 
ments, and  to  compile  data  and  do  research  work  in  connection 
with  such  movements.  The  object  of  such  work  is  the  discovery 
of  laws  governing,  and  causes  producing  earthquakes  and  lava 
eruptions ; with  a view  to  ultimately  being  able  to  predict  earth- 
quakes and  volcanic  outbreaks  and  thereby  minimize  their  destruc- 
tiveness. Furthermore,  in  the  light  of  the  results  of  earth  study, 
such  an  engineering  school  as  the  Massachusetts  Institute  is  well 
equipped  to  investigate  what  forms  of  construction  of  houses, 
bridges,  aqueducts,  stacks  and  walls  will  best  resist  these  great 
natural  accidents.  A circular  was  issued  in  March,  1909,  outlining 
the  project,  signed  by  Arthur  A.  Noyes,  Acting  President  of  the 
Institute;  George  F.  Swain,  Hayward  Professor  of  Civil  En- 
gineering, and  Thomas  A.  Jaggar,  Jr.,  Professor  of  Geology,  the 
last  two  being  the  heads  of  their  respective  departments  in  the 
Institute. 
SCIENCE  OF  GEOPHYSICS. 
The  purpose  of  the  science  of  Geophysics  is  to  record  with  in- 
struments all  the  physical  and  chemical  processes  going  on  in  the 
earth.  Recent  disasters  such  as  Messina  and  San  Francisco  have 
shown  how  defective,  for  humane  and  practical  purposes,  our 
knowledge  of  these  processes  is.  The  study  of  near  and  distant 
earthquakes,  considering  the  earth  as  a whole,  can  be  conducted 
as  well  at  one  place  as  at  another.  Until  recently  it  had  been  in- 
tended to  establish  the  proposed  station  at  Blue  Hill,  a point  near 
Boston,  where  a meteorological  observatory  is  located.  It  has 
been  the  desire  of  the  Institute,  however,  to  secure  a volcanic  site 
in  order  to  observe  the  local  activities  of  a particular  volcano,  as 
well  as  the  waves  which  pass  through  the  earth  from  distant  earth- 
