Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 74.djvu/519

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Observatory at Albany and is now being extended to the southern hemisphere in the observatory erected at San Luis in the Argentine Republic, where the work is under the immediate charge of Professor R. H. Tucker, who has been given leave of absence from the Lick Observatory for this purpose.

The work in terrestrial magnetism under Dr. L. A. Bauer includes the completion of the third cruise of the Galilee on the Pacific, where altogether over 60,000 nautical miles have been covered in regions where magnetic data were especially needed. With the extensive work done on land in different countries by the institution and by other agencies a new set of magnetic charts covering nearly one third of the globe can now be constructed. A new magnetic survey yacht is being built, which, on its completion this summer, will be sent to the north Atlantic. The geophysical laboratory at Washington, of which Dr. A. L. Day is director, is now in efficient working order and has entered on a systematic study of rock formation, with excellent equipment for producing such effects of temperature, pressure, etc., as may have occurred in the history of the earth's development.

In biology, the institution supports a desert botanical laboratory in Arizona; a station for experimental evolution on Long Island and a marine biological laboratory in one of the Tortugas Islands. With the desert laboratory at Tucson as headquarters, very interesting experiments are being made on the effects of moisture, altitude, etc., in plants, including a study of the vegetation following the receding area of the Salton Sea. Especially noteworthy have been the experiments of Dr. D. T. MacDougall on the production of new kinds of plants by subjecting the reproductive organs to chemical action. Elaborate experiments in breeding have been carried forward under the direction of Dr. C. B. Davenport at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, including the crossing of poultry, canaries, cats, sheep, goats,manual correction [sic] insects and plants, and observations on human traits, which give quantitative data of importance for determining the laws of heredity. The station at Dry