Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/486

482

is natural that the Carnegie Institution should claim frequent attention in a monthly report on the progress of science. Never before has there been an attempt on so large a scale to stimulate scientific research. The Royal Society of London; the Academies of Sciences of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg and Rome; The Royal Institution of London, and the Smithsonian Institution, combined, do not have an income approaching that of the Carnegie Institution, nor have they the same freedom in the disposition of their funds. The third year book of the institution, which has just been published, is consequently a document of great interest to all those who concern themselves with the advancement of science. An artificial interest is further given to the annual report because the officers have hitherto followed the policy of not announcing until the end of the year their grants and appointments. An exception was of course made in the case of the president elected at the December meeting of the trustees to succeed Dr. Oilman; and we have already congratulated the institution and the research work of the country on the appointment of Professor R. S. Woodward, of Columbia University, to this important position.

It appears from the financial statement in the year-book that the disbursements for grants last year amounted to $267,232; for publication to $11,590, and for administration to $26,957. A reserve fund is being accumulated, $196,957 having been invested in railway bonds and there being a cash balance of $461,902. Appropriations have, however, been made for the current year that will exceed the income. They are as follows:

The most important project undertaken by the institution last year was the establishment of a department of experimental biology. Dr. Charles B. Davenport, of the University of Chicago, was appointed director of a Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, and



Dr. Alfred G. Mayer, of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science, was appointed director of a Marine Biological Laboratory at the Dry Tortugas, Florida. A grant of $34,250 was made to the station at Cold Spring Harbor, and of $20,000 to the laboratory at the Dry Tortugas.

We reproduce illustrations showing the buildings of these laboratories and the yacht built for the southern station. A grant of $40,000 was made for tropical Pacific exploration, but it seems that Mr. Agassiz preferred to