tradicted daily in the plexus of events which make up what our successors will call the history, recorded and unrecorded, of the institution. Thus it has been suggested not infrequently that promising researches be suspended in order that equally or less promising researches might be taken up; and it has happened that proposals to abolish departments of research have been seriously advanced before these departments have had time to prove their rights to existence. It is not infrequently suggested, likewise, by otherwise irreproachable correspondents, that the experts of the laboratories and observatories of the institution be set at work under the direction of amateurs, or, in some cases, of those even who have not reached that earliest stage of capacity in science.

It goes without saying that all such untoward influences should have little effect on the rise and progress of a research establishment; but he would be an incompetent administrator who failed to recognize the existence and the dangers of these influences. Most men are still opportunists; many contemn principles and theories of procedure; while the characteristic defect of deliberative bodies, strikingly illustrated by legislative assemblies, is lack of deliberation. Moreover, what any organization, altruistic or otherwise, may accomplish at any epoch, or during any period, will depend very largely on the status of contemporary public opinion. No organization may be rationally expected to rise much above the level of the ideals of those who support and direct it. The law of averages and the "law of conservation of ignorance" apply in the business of research no less rigorously than in other affairs of human endeavor. The only difference is that in research, from the nature of the case, we are held to stricter accountability; it is incumbent on us to be alive to the ideals and the theories which lead to

regress as well as alive to the ideals and the theories which lead to progress.

Although popular opinion continues to look upon the institution as an establishment of unlimited means, and hence of unlimited capacities, it is an easily ascertained fact that such advances as have been attained are due chiefly to concentration of effort in a few fields of investigation, the number of these being necessarily limited by the finiteness of income. Of the agencies which have contributed most to these advances the departments of research must be given first rank when quality and quantity of results accomplished are taken into account. These departments have supplied also a much needed verification of the axiom hitherto admitted in all domains of activity except those of research, namely, that if any good work is required the best way to get it done is to commit it to competent men not otherwise preoccupied. They have verified, likewise, the equally obvious truth that large and difficult undertakings demand foresight and oversight, prolonged effort, and a corresponding continuity of support. The idea that discoveries and advances are of meteoric origin and that they are due chiefly to abnormal minds has been rudely shattered by the remorseless experience of the institution.

Along with these considerations special mention should be made of another of vital importance to the departments of research. This is their complete autonomy within the limits of their annual appropriations. Allusion is made to this matter here partly for the purpose of correcting public misapprehension concerning the relations of these departments to the institution as a whole, and partly for the purpose of stating formally the theory of administration followed by the institution during the past twelve years. Such a degree of freedom accorded to the departments of research is

not only necessary by reason of the extent and the complexity of the affairs of the institution, but it should be regarded as a fundamental principle of sound administration. No one can follow the details of all these varied affairs. A division of labors is indispensable, and to the greatest extent practicable the director of a department of research should be encouraged to be the autocrat of his departmental destiny. But in so far as departments are granted liberty of action it is an equally fundamental principle of administration that they should assume corresponding responsibilities. Autonomous freedom and reciprocal accountability are then, in brief, the essentials of the theory under which the departments of research have evolved.

In consonance with the theory just indicated and in conformity with the precedent set a year ago, no attempt is made here to furnish abstracts of the current departmental reports. They give sufficiently condensed summaries of departmental activities and departmental progress. They are, as a rule, highly technical papers and difficult of adequate appreciation even by those somewhat familiar with the subjects considered. But this is not only just as it should be, but it is inevitable if the investigations under way are worth making. Our confidence in them must be founded in large degree on the general principles revealed in the advancement of science. Great and admirable achievements were attained by the ancients prior to the epoch of recorded history; still greater achievements were attained by the Greeks, the Arabs, and the moderns down to the epoch of Galileo and Newton; while competent judges have estimated that greater progress was secured in the nineteenth century than during all previous history. It is quite within conservative reason, therefore, to assume that if we continue to fol

low those principles, now grounded in more than twenty centuries of repeatedly verified experience, in the light of accumulated and recorded knowledge, we may confidently expect to achieve corresponding further advances.

The question is sometimes raised as to how the efficiencies of investigators and of departments of research are, or possibly may be, estimated. Occasionally, also, there seems to be entertained along with this question the hypothesis that research is a commodity and that money is the chief agent in promoting its effective increase. But the currently common meaning of efficiency implied in this question and in this hypothesis is too narrow for application here. It applies rather to machines and to aggregates of men working like machinery for predetermined economic ends. In a broader sense, however, the question of efficiency of men and of organizations is worthy of considerate attention. It is, indeed, in this inclusive sense, a question of the greatest importance, especially in all cooperative enterprises of communities and states. But without going into these larger aspects of the matter, it may be said that the efficiencies of the investigators and of the departments of research of the institution are determined in the same way that justification for the institution, as a whole, is determined, namely, by the consensus of competent opinion. In science, the work of an individual is measured on its merits and the work of an organization is weighed in the same manner. Adequate tests and standards for what is not fully known may not be wisely set up in acts of administration. Severer tests and higher standards are supplied automatically and relentlessly by contemporary criticism and by the verdicts of posterity. Hence, given a corps of trained investigators, or an organization of several such, the question of efficiency is happily one which is decided for us mainly

by those who are alone qualified to render adequate judgment.

Like all other branches of the institution, the division of research associates has undergone a distinct evolution. Originally a division which gave rise to excessive and often unrealizable expectations, it has gradually become shorn of its extrinsic appendages and divested of its inheritances from occultism. In spite of these omnipresent obstacles to progress and to efficiency, this division has been highly productive from the beginning and continues to be one of the most important agencies of the institution for the promotion of learning. The main reason for the noteworthy success of this agency is very simple. It was stated in a recommendation concerning research associateships, in the report of the president for the year 1906, in these words:

The limitation of eligibility for such positions to investigators of proved capacity for and of proved opportunity for research.

In the meantime, the number of those possessing such qualifications has increased much more rapidly than the resources of the institution (or than the resources of all research agencies combined) have increased to meet this and other growing financial needs. Not only has income failed to keep pace with worthy demands, but, as repeatedly pointed out hitherto, the purchasing capacity of income has steadily declined since the foundation of the institution. Thus it happens that now, just as the merits of the system of research associates have come to be generally recognized, it is essential to suspend extension of this system, and it may become essential to curtail to some extent the amounts of the grants hitherto made to those who have helped most to develop this remarkably effective division of the institution's activities.

It should be evident from the preceding paragraphs of this section of the report, as well as from numerous passages in previous reports, that the income of the institution is not only not equal to popular estimates, but that it is not equal even to the legitimate demands on it for research. This proposition is easily verified, although few people believe it and fewer still are willing to undertake the small arithmetical labor essential for its demonstration. On the other hand, it is admitted by everybody that the institution is not doing as much as it could, but the simple reasons for this obvious fact appear to be far from equally obvious. Whether it would be desirable, if practicable, to double, say, the endowment, and hence the income, of the institution is a question well worthy of consideration. But along with many reasons why it would be so desirable there might be adduced also many other reasons why it would not. This is, indeed, a fundamental question whose deliberate consideration should precede the next step. We possess as yet no well-defined and generally accepted theory of a research organization. The institution, plainly enough, stands somewhat in isolation. It would prosper better, probably, and be better understood, certainly, if it had more contemporaries with which to divide not only the vast fields of opportunity, but also the vast aggregate of fruitless labors imposed on those who should be preoccupied with the business of research. In the meantime, while no expansion is permissible under existing income, the current activities of the institution may continue without serious modification of plans or impairment of efficiency. R. S. WOODWARD

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS WIRELESS TELEGRAPH INSTALLATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

A NOTABLE addition to the equipment of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory at the Univer

sity of Chicago has recently been made by the installation of wireless telegraph apparatus. The aerial will be stretched between the mast on Ryerson Laboratory and a similar one on Mitchell Tower, making available approximately a height of 140 feet and a length of 425 feet for the aerial conductor. This will consist of eight wires, each made of seven strands, which, including leads into the building, will require nearly six miles of phosphor bronze wire. The mounting and insulation will be most fully provided for in order to withstand a pull of three thousand pounds, which a heavy wind on ice-covered wires might produce; and also to make the electrical leakage negligibly small even when using the 20,000 volts which will be employed in transmission experiments.

The first transmitter will be of five kilowatts capacity, which will be sufficient for the present, though not suitable for transoceanic communication. The important parts of this apparatus are being made in the Ryerson Laboratory and already preliminary tests have shown that a high degree of efficiency will be attained.

All types of receiving instruments will be used and the excellent character of the aerial will make it possible to receive and experiment with the radiations from all the highpowered stations of the United States and with many of those of the European nations. Research work has already been started and arrangements made to carry on work in cooperation with another university as soon as the installation of the Ryerson apparatus is completed. Courses on the theory of wireless telegraphy and telephony coordinated with electrical measurements will be given during the coming summer quarter.

Associate Professor Carl Kinsley, of the department of physics at the University of Chicago, who prepared the substance of the foregoing statement, was for several years an electrical expert for the War Department and devised a wireless system, which was the first to be accepted by the United States government and is now in use by the San Francisco wireless station. Professor Kinsley has

been connected with the University of Chicago for fifteen years.

THE LEASE OF THE TROPICAL BOTANICAL STATION AT CINCHONA

THE botanical station at Cinchona, in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, formerly leased for ten years by the New York Botanical Garden, has now been leased by the Smithsonian Institution, on behalf of fourteen American botanists and botanical institutions that have contributed the rental. These botanists and institutions believe there is need in the American tropics of a counterpart of the famous Buitenzorg Garden in Java. They hope the opening of this laboratory at Cinchona may prove as stimulating to the development of botany in this country as the opportunities afforded at Buitenzorg have to the advance of this science in Europe.

The equipment available at the station consists of the residence, with its furnishings; of three laboratory buildings, two glass propagating houses and a garden of ten acres, containing scores of species of exotic shrubs and trees, besides many native plants from the highlands of Jamaica. The occupant of Cinchona is also free, within reasonable bounds, to study and collect plants over the many thousand acres of the whole Cinchona reservation, as well as in the neighboring valleys belonging to private owners. He will likewise be given every available facility for study at Hope Gardens, where he will find a herbarium, a library and an extensive collection of tropical plants. The same privilege will be his at Castleton Garden which contains a splendid collection of cycads, of palms, and of Ficus and other dicotyledonous trees.

The many different types of native vegetation accessible from Cinchona and from Hope, include a number of great ecological interest and numerous species of importance for the morphologist, cytologist and physiologist. The ecological types range from the tree ferns, epiphytes and water-soaked filmy ferns of the cool mountain forest to the hot, steaming woods of the lowlands of the north side at one extreme and to the dry savannahs and cactus deserts near Kingston at the other. Fuller

statements of the opportunities for research in various lines, written by men who have worked there, may be found in SCIENCE, Vol. 43, p. 917, 1916. (See also Popular Science Monthly, January, 1915.)

Any American investigator may be granted the use of the Cinchona Station by the Cinchona Committee, which consists of N. L. Britton, John M. Coulter and Duncan S. Johnson. Applications for this privilege and for information regarding the conditions under which it is granted should be sent to Duncan S. Johnson, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE

THE Council of National Defense and its advisory commission, composed of civilians, have decided to appoint seven committees to further develop the program for the mobilization of the resources of the country. They have issued the following statement:

The program of the council and commission has for its object the provision of an adequate military and naval defense based on an adequate industrial and commercial coordination and preparation. To attain this end, a definite, immediate and continuing program is being worked out.

The commission has divided into committees. A member of the commission is the chairman of each of the committees. Committees have been formed to take charge of the following subjects, and other committees will be formed as they may be needed. A. Medicine, including general sanitation, Commissioner Franklin H. Martin, chairman.

B. Labor, including conservation of health and welfare of workers, Commissioner Samuel Gompers, chairman.

C. Transportation and communication, Commissioner Daniel Willard, chairman.

D. Science and research, including engineering and education, Commissioner Hollis Godfrey, chair

man.

E. Raw materials, minerals and metals, Commissioner Bernard Baruch, chairman.

F. Munitions, manufacturing, including standardization and industrial relations, Commissioner Howard Coffin, chairman.

G. Supplies, including food, clothing, etc., Commissioner Julius Rosenwald, chairman.

The chairman of each committee will call a series of conferences with representatives of trades, busi

nesses or professions. At such conferences the representatives shall be asked to organize so as to deal with the council through one man or through a committee of not more than three men, to whom the council shall submit problems which may affect the national defense and welfare.

One or more members of the council will meet the conferees and set forth the desires of the government and its needs. To quote the words of the enabling act, these needs are "the creation of relations which will render possible in time of need the immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the nation.''

The chairmen were authorized to select committeemen from either government or civil life.

THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

THE annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences will be held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington on April 16, 17 and 18, 1917.

By direction of the council and of the program committee, members are invited to present brief announcements, not exceeding ten minutes in length, of new discoveries and of the results of current research work, somewhat similar in scope and character to the announcements regularly made in the Proceedings. Titles, accompanied by an abstract of 100 or 200 words, should be sent to the chairman of the program committee, Professor B. B. Boltwood, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., not later than March 30, in order to be included in the program to be printed in SCIENCE. Titles which reach the chairman later than March 30 will be assigned a place by the program committee so far as time permits. About one third of the scientific program has been reserved for these announcements; the remainder will be arranged by the program committee. The sessions will be held as follows:

9.30 A.M.

seum.

10.30 A.M.

Monday, April 16

Business session, U. S. National Mu

Scientific session (open to the pub

lic), U. S. National Museum.

2.30 P.M.

Scientific session (open to the pub

lic), U. S. National Museum. 4.00 P.M. First William Ellery Hale Lecture,