Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/290

286 This is a safe policy. The original deed of gift and the act of incorporation 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:

The minor grants amounted to $130,625, including $26,000 to Professor R. Pumpelly for work in archeology and $10,000 for the conduct of the 'Index Medicus.' The following general appropriations have been made for the current year:

No official announcement has been made of the new work that will be undertaken by the institution, but it may be assumed from the recommendations in the report of the president that the larger part of the appropriation for departments will go to the solar observatory on Mt. Wilson, an astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere and a geophysical laboratory in Washington. It appears further that a department of botanical research has been established and placed under the direction of Dr. D. T. MacDougal.

An establishment such as the Carnegie 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 regret that its great resources have not been more directly applied to what it only could do. But whatever criticism may be directed against the institution, men of science will agree that the conduct of its work could not be in abler and safer hands than President Woodward's.

noted here recently the award of the Nobel prize in chemistry to Professor von Baeyer. The students and friends of the great German chemist have now published his collected works in celebration of his seventieth birthday, and thanks to the charming autobiographical sketch that is prefaced 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 center 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 extended 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