THE RESEARCH WORK OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION
The seventh year book of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, like its predecessors, gives an interesting account of the investigations carried on last year. The work is now in the main conducted by its departments; only a few minor grants are made to scientific men in other institutions, and these are nearly all in continuation of work begun when it was the policy to distribute the larger part of the income in special grants.
The institution has now ten departments, or twelve, if the Index Medicus and the horticultural work of Mr. Luther Burbank are included. Two of the principal departments are in astronomy, two in geophysics, three in biology, one in physiology and two in economics and history. The amount of the grants for these departments last year was: astronomy, $105,000; geophysics, $139,000; biology, $70,000; physiology, $35,000; economics and history, $50,000. There was a special grant of $50,000 for publications.
In astronomy the institution conducts the solar observatory on Mount Wilson in California, under the directorship of Dr. George E. Hale, and last year established an observatory in Argentina for meridian astrometry, under Dr. Lewis Boss. The solar observatory has made notable progress in its elaborate installations and has carried forward research work in several directions. The 60-inch reflecting equatorial telescope has been mounted in a new steel dome, and the tower telescope and the horizontal telescope, together with the spectroscopic laboratory in Pasadena, have been in use. The most important work relates to sun-spots and flocculi, giving new results in regard to the constitution and rotation of the sun. The study of the motion and structure of the stellar system has been continued in the Dudley
Steel Building and Dome foe the 60-inch Reflector.
