Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/290
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��POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
��This is a safe policy. The original deed of gift and the act of incorpora- tion leave more to the imagination, and many, men of science had dreams of an institution that would become the chief center of scientific organization and inspiration for the country. But it is not fair to expect the impossible, and we should perhaps be satisfied if the institution conducts a geophysical laboratory as efficiently as it would be conducted under the Geological Survey and an astronomical observatory on Mt. Wilson doing as good work as that on Mt. Hamilton.
The large projects received, last year, grants as follows:
Station for Experimental Evolution % 12,000
Tortugas Marine Biological Laboratory.. 15 700
Desert Botanical Laboratory 6.000
Horticulture ". 10,000
Economics and sociology HO. 000
Terrestrial magnetism 25,000
Historical research 14 000
Solar observatory 150. 0>
Geophysical research 24.000
Nutrition 16,000
Paleontology (trauslened to minor
grants) 1.800
Total $304,500
The minor grants amounted to $130,025, including $26,000 to Pro- fessor R. Pumpelly for work in archeol- ogy and $10,000 for the conduct of the ' Index Medicus.' The following gen- eral appropriations have been made for the current year:
Publication fund to be continuously
available $ 50,000
Administration 50,000
Grants for departments and large proj- ects 552,600
Grants for miscellaneous iesearches, in
eluding grants previously implied... 13 1,000
��Totil $786,600
No official announcement has been made of the new work that will be undertaken by the institution, but it may be assumed from the recommenda- tions in the report of the president that the larger part of the appropria- tion for departments will go to the solar observatory on Mt. Wilson, an astronomical observatory in the south- ern hemisphere and a geophysical labo- ratory in Washington. It appears fur- ther that a department of botanical research has been established and
��placed under the direction of Dr. D. T. MacDougal.
An establishment such as the Car- negie Institution is face to face with many new and difficult problems. We regret that means have not been found to make the organization more truly democratic and representative of the scientific men of the country; we re- gret that its great resources have not been more directly applied to what it only could do. But whatever criti- cism may be directed against the insti- tution, men of science will agree that the conduct of its work could not be in abler and safer hands than Presi- dent Woodward's.
PROFESSOR ADOLF VON BAEYER We noted here recently the award of the Nobel prize in chemistry to Professor von Baeyer. The students and friends of the great German chem- ist have now published his collected works in celebration of his seventieth birthday, and thanks to the charming autobiographical sketch that is pref- aced to the volumes we are able to give some facts in regard to his life and work, together with a portrait. Baeyer was born in Berlin, October 31, 1835, a member of the scientific and literary aristocracy of Germany. His father was an eminent geodesist, his mother's father, J. E. Hitzig, and his uncle, Franz Kugler, were at the cen- ter of the literary life of the city, and he had every advantage in the way of association and education. He began systematic chemical experiments at the age of nine and made a discovery of some importance at the age of twelve. While a school boy he made botanical excursions with Paul Ascherson, now professor of botany at Berlin, and ex- tended explorations with Ferdinand von Richthofen, afterwards famous as a geographer. After three semesters at Berlin, Baeyer went to Heidelberg, where Bunsen's laboratory was the chief center of chemical research in Germany. Here he gained much from
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