Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/105

Rh logical method; and one feels that he kept hoping against hope that some cine would yet be found to lead him triumphantly out of his labyrinth of difficulties. So he held fast to his plan of research, undismayed when his fellow workers deserted him. "The problem is difficult, not dead," he is said to have declared, when others entered some new and attractive field—" and it is in the difficulties of an old problem that one learns, not in beginning a new one."

Dohrn suffered, there can be no doubt, in noticing that as time went on "the problems of the head" attracted fewer workers. But such a man must have realized, none the less, that this was an inevitable result when new lines of investigation are suddenly developed and when the number of investigators available for all fields is small. And in his heart he must have felt that his theme would always be given a high place, even by those to whom it became "unfashionable." On the other hand if there was no general sympathy for his embryological work there was certainly no lack of appreciation of his work for the Naples station. He lived to see it in the position which he had planned for it, and he took keen satisfaction in seeing his son Reinhart installed as its executive. So he may well have felt in the end, as the solace of his long illness, that his work had been well done.

Carnegie left Brooklyn, N. Y., on August 21 last, to carry out her first cruise, extending to St. John's N. F., thence to England and returning to New York, early next year, via Madeira and Bermuda. As may be recalled, this vessel has been built practically without any iron, or other magnetic materials, in order to adapt her to the needs of a magnetic survey of the oceans under the direction of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

She arrived at St. John's on September 25 and left again on October 2 with the director, Dr. L. A. Bauer, on board, accomplishing the passage across the Atlantic to Falmouth, England, in twelve days. She is now en route to Madeira and Bermuda under the command of W. J. Peters. In addition to the scientific and navigation staff, composed of seven persons, there are on board two watch officers, two cooks and nine seamen, or twenty persons in all.

The tests and observations made thus far have proved that the desired nonmagnetic conditions where the various instruments are placed have been actually secured, so that no corrections whatsoever need be applied to the magnetic data obtained on the Carnegie. In consequence the work has been greatly facilitated and for the first time it has become possible to make known the results immediately upon conclusion of a voyage. The instruments, largely designed and constructed in the workshop of Dr. Bauer's department, have reached a high stage of perfection, permitting satisfactory observations to be made even under adverse conditions of sea and weather.

The introduction of sheltering observatories, circular in shape and having revolvable domes similar to those of astronomical observatories, is one of the new features which has contributed to the success achieved. Inside these observatories, of which there are two, the after one being shown in the view, both astronomical and magnetic observations may be made with full protection to the observer and instrument from wind and weather.

During a period of six weeks the work of this vessel has already disclosed errors in the magnetic data supplied to mariners of sufficient practical importance to require attention. Thus it was found that from Long Island to a point off St. John's the charts show too small west magnetic declination by