|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 4
4 C4LIPORNId COMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
I. HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION
For some years prior to 1914 there had been on the Pacific Coast
a Pacific Coast Association of Scientific Societies comprising; a union
of most of the scientific organizations of that region. With the
appointment of the Committee of One Hundred on Research of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1913, a
Pacific Coast Subcommittee of this larger Committee was formed for
the purpose of studying means for promoting scientific research in
this region so remote from the other centers of scientific life of this
country. These steps, together with the preparations necessary for
the'San Francisco meeting of the American Association in connec-
tion with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, led
to the formation in 1914 of a Pacific Division of the American Asso-
ciation. An organization of the scientific interests of the Pacific
Coast for the general purposes of the advancement of science had
thus been built up before the entry of America into the war.
A meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association had
been appointed at Stanford University for April 5-7, 1917, and with
the development of the international crisis at that time the major
interest of this meeting centered upon means by which scientific men
of the Pacific Coast could contribute their services to the national
cause.
At the Stanford meeting, in order to meet the impending emer-
gency of the war, the Pacific (Joast Subcommittee of the Committee
of One Hundred on Research was enlarged by the abolition of repre-
sentatives of the Pacific Coast sections of national scientific societies,
of local societies, and of sections of the Pacific Division of the Ameri-
can Association. This body came to be known as the Pacific Coast
Research Conference. The Pacific Coast Subcommittee of the Com-
mittee of One Hundred on Research of the American Association
became the Executive Committee of this Conference.
The Pacific Coast Research Conference at once offered its services
to the Committee on Scientific Research which had just been ap-
pointed by the California State Council of Defense, and also to
Councils of Defense in other Pacific Coast~States through the follow-
ing resolution:
"WHEREAS, It is the opinion of this Committee that the im-
portant scientific problems before men of science today are
those problems relating to preparation for war which require
scientific research;
GTUEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That this Committee rep-
resenting the scientific interest of the Pacific Division of the
OCR for page 5
ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES: GOODSPEED ~
American Association for the Advancement of Science, offer
to the State Council of Defense already formed in California,
and to such other similar state or national organizations as
may be organized, the full support and assistance of this
Committee, in so far as it may be desired for the direction
of research, upon problems arising out of a condition of prepa-
rat~on for war.
On April 6 this resolution was transmitted to the, Committee on
Scientific Research of the State Council of Defense for California.
The offer was accepted by the California State Council of Defense
and special committees of the Conference were authorized to submit
programs of investigations deemed necessary. In order to facilitate
control and administration, the Committee on Scientific Research of
the California State Council of Defense was enlarged by the addition
of the members of the Executive Committee of the Pacific Coast
Research Conference and of the directors of the state scientific and
technical bureaus, and the control of the special committees of the
Conference was turned over directly to the Committee on Scientific
Research of the California!State Council of Defense. The Confer-
ence retained a general advisory relation to the scientific work of the
Coast. National relationships were promptly established by the Cali-
fornia Committee on Scientific Research immediately placing itself
in touch with the National Research Council at Washington and the
two bodies co-operated throughout the war. Thus scientific work in
California during the war was related directly to the interest in re-
search which had been cleveloped previously on the Pacific Coast
with the increasing co-ordination of scientific activities of the region.
In an early report submitted to the State Council of Defense by its
Committee on Scientific Research on April 18, the recommendations
of the special committees upon important investigations were em-
bodied, and the Committee on Scientific Research defined its purposes
and outlined its plan for organizing the investigations rendered par-
ticularly important by the emergency, in this way:
"The Research Committee, in conference with representa-
tives of the scientific societies, is concerned with all matters
relating to research which may be applied to problems of de-
fense, offense, or the needs of the state and nation in the
present emergency. The committee is assumed to have sev-
eral functions which may be stated as follows:
(~) To serve as a research board ready to receive from any
division of the State Council of Defense matters for scientific
investigation, urgently requiring attention at this time;
(2) To use the whole range of scientific research for the
development of new sources of supply or new forces to be
made available for present needs;
OCR for page 6
6 CALIFORNIA COMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
(3) To bring about co-operation between phases of engi-
neering or applied science, contacts of which are mainly by
way of the fundamental scientific principles upon which the
application is based."
"Your Committee, in undertaking to secure an estimate of
the problems of scientific research in which the State of Cali-
fornia or the Nation may have an urgent interest, found
already organized and ready with offers of co-operation the
Pacific Coast Research Committee of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science, which at its meeting in
conference with representatives from scientific societies affili-
ated with the Pacific Division of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science at the Leland Stanford Junior
University on April 5-7, 1917, made a tender of services and
perfected its organization. Your committee has voted to ac-
ce it the offer of co-operation and looks to this body to organize
the several investigations deemed imperative The above
Pacific Coast Research (committee has proceeded with great
activity, and, in consultation with your committee, has ap-
pointed a number of subcommittees, constituted of the most
eminent men in the fields of science in our locality. These
subcommittees are the following:
Committee on Astronomical and Mathematical In-
~restigations.
Committee on Botanical l:nvestigations.
(committee on Chemical Research.
Committee on Economics.
Committee on Engineering and Inattentions.
Committee on Entomological Investigations.
Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources.
Subcommittee on Iron Ore.
Subcommittee on Alkalis.
(committee on Medical Research.
(committee on Occupational Selection.
Petroleum Commission.
Committee on Physical Investigations.
Committee on Psychological Investigations.
()ommittee on Zoological Investigations.
Your committee has received detailed reports from each
one of these subcommittees giving full information of inves-
tigation already in progress, of existing facilities and re-
sources available to the State, and has accompanied these
reports with a statement of financial needs not covered by
existing facilities or sums of money. The sum total of the
money required is estimated to be $106,750' for the first
year and $35,250 for the second year. Your committee
recommends that these sums of money be included in the
State Emergency Fund to be made available for expenditure
by action of the State Board of Control and the Comptroller
OCR for page 7
ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES: GOODSPE~D 7
to be disbursed and in the manner prescribed by these agents
of the State upon estimates of need furnished by your Com-
mittee on Scientific Research."
Later these estimates were revised and on May 15 the following
budget was approved subject to certification of the emergency char-
acter of the various items by the Governor as Chairman of the estate
Council of Defense.
Chemical Investigations ......
Botanical Investigations ....
Psychological Investigations
Medical Investigations .....
Entomological Tn~Testigations
Zoological Investigations ...............
Office Maintenance ...........
.... $42,000
1,000
245
3,500
... 10,000
10,000
1,550
$6S,295
Early in June, 1917, a sum of $3,900 was made available for office
expenses and for investigations upon native rubber and upon taurin
as a possible cure for tuberculosis, and for certain zoological investi-
gations. Later $32,000 was appropriated for use upon other inves-
tigations approved in the budget adopted by the Committee, the
funds being sent to the Comptroller of the University of California
to act as trustee.
The ending of the recent war found the Committee on Scientific
Research of the State Council of Defense for California with a num-
ber of the more active and important of its research projects still
under way, and by a redistribution of remaining funds it was possible
to provide for the completion of the unfinished work. In the major-
ity of cases preliminary reports of the results obtained have been
published for the various research projects, either directly by the
State Council of Defense or in various scientific periodicals. A list
of these papers and reports is appended. In the statements which
follow, the work of the special committees is summarized.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
state council
