Dr. JEWETT. For capital expenditures. That is what the records which we have show.

Mr. HENDRICKS. That does not include any equipment?

Mr. STARNES. That is equipment, as I understand.

Dr. JEWETT. It was for buildings and permanent equipment. Then, in addition, there has been apparently $7,000 over the years which have been contributed by universities to maintain tables, and by people who have gone down there and made small contributions toward the actual cost of operating the place.

Mr. HENDRICKS. Over how many years was that?

Dr. JEWETT. I think it started back in 1921 or 1922.
Mr. HENDRICKS. About 20 years?

Dr. JEWETT. At least 20 years; yes, sir.

VALUE AND NATURE OF WORK BEING CARRIED ON

Mr. STARNES. What is the practical benefit to come from it? That is the question that came up before the committee, as I understand, when much ado was made about this and we were called on to justify its practical benefit to the Government, and why the Government should contribute money. That is the crux of the situation, Doctor. Dr. JEWETT. I appreciate it.

Mr. STARNES. And, unless we can show that, we will not be able to justify an appropriation.

Dr. JEWETT. May I explain my point of view? As I have said, I am not a biologist, and I am not even a fundamental scientist. I have spent a large part of my professional life as an industrial research director who is looking for practical values out of things. I was president and I am now chairman of the board of the Bell Telephone Laboratories which, I suppose, is the biggest industrial research laboratory in the world, and it is an industrial laboratory. Now, through the years in the physical sciences, in common with every other industrial research director who has had experience, I think I can say that the greatest values of a practical nature come out of additions to fundamental science and not out of the application of known knowledge to new things. That is certainly true in the physical sciences. And because the biological sciences, particularly those which have to do with a body so intricate as the human body, or anything living of that kind, are very much more complex than they are in the physical sciences, I am absolutely sure from my own experience and from talking with biological and medical people that the real advances which can be made are completely dependent upon the advances of fundamental science. I say that preliminary to trying to answer your question.

Two of the most important things which they have attempted to do down there, and which have been going on for a long period of time, have been to find the answer to this terrible termite destruction of wood structures in the tropical regions particularly, but which is evident in continental United States even as far north as where I live, in New Jersey. I testified here to my own experience, of my neighbor's house which was destroyed by termites.

Now, there have been a lot of attempts made to counteract this termite trouble, which is horribly destructive of wooden structures,

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by the cut-and-try process. For instance, somebody has an idea; you try it. Well, one of the things we tried and which is pretty effective at times if you can get at it early enough, is to use creosote to creosote the wood. Termites do not like creosote. But you cannot always do it in time and even if you do the creosote leeches out in time. It seems that everybody has a particular scheme for controlling them; but everybody is agreed that, if we are going to get the answer to this problem, we have to know more about the fundamental habits of this miserable form of roache and, in addition, have to decide on some scheme which you think is a promising scheme.

Now, there is only one test you can make to see if you are right, and that is to put it to the test to see if the termites will attack the stuff, and how long it will last before they will attack it. Now, they have been carrying on for years down there investigations both of the life habits of these termites which, because of the tropical country, do not have the seasonal ups and downs that we have in this northern climate, and also they have been testing out all kinds of ameliorative and preventive schemes that anybody has suggested. Woods have been impregnated and different kinds of woods have been put out in controlled observed test plots on the island, and a certain considerable amount of progress has been made.

For one thing, I think they have pretty well shown that the California redwoods, which were known for years to be resistant to rot, are also largely resistant to termite attack-not completely, but much more so than other kinds of woods. That work has been going on for a long time, and corresponding work in a small way that we have been attempting to do and various people interested in wood products have been attempting to do, in our Southern States here. But there, because of the seasonal business, the process is a slow operation.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Is it more destructive in the tropical countries than it is in the colder climates?

Dr. JEWETT. They are no more destructive when they get started, but they get started so much more rapidly.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. That is one of the great troubles in Panama? Dr. JEWETT. Yes.

Mr. STARNES. What else besides termites? You are getting down to bedrock now.

Dr. JEWETT. The whole question of rots and fungi. We all know in the more humid regions the development of rot and the growth of fungi is much greater than it is in the temperate climates. That, again, is a matter of very considerable interest to anybody who is interested in the destructible structures in the Tropics and certainly the United States now, more than ever before, is interested in the preservation of that sort of material.

Then there is an incidental thing in which we have had some support, in a quite different field. A table or two has been supported by the Eastman Kodak Co. down there to get field trial observations of the deterioration of photographic films and the fogging of optical apparatus. We experience, both in the Army and Navy and everybody who has used optical apparatus in the Tropics, under certain conditions, that not only the photographic materials but the apparatus deteriorates enormously, as evidenced by the fact if you go and buy a

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movie picture film, to use in the Tropics, it is packed in a tropical package, sealed up. The apparatus deteriorates, due to the fact it is exposed to the warm humid climate, and certain kinds of optical glass deteriorates more than others. So that they have maintained a small staff down there and these tests are being run with a view to improving optical apparatus.

That, again, is a thing of very great interest not only to the public generally, but to the United States Government itself. Looking at it from my standpoint, not as a biologist, not as a fundamental scientist, but just as a straight business proposition, it seems to me the maintenance of this laboratory is highly desirable, and the amount of money involved is insignificant.

Mr. STARNES. I agree with you that it is infinitesimal, it is not even a pin-point, but when you try to pass it you meet with opposition and we want some sound, fundamental reason why the Federal Government should expend this money and what we might expect to obtain as a result of the expenditure.

Dr. JEWETT. Well, I have given you, as best I can, my own experience as to the reasons. Nobody in his sound senses, dealing with fundamental sciences, will ever make predictions as to what at some time in the future you will get in the way of practical value out of those things. All I can say is what I did.

SOURCE OF CURRENT FUNDS

Mr. HOUSTON. How much was contributed this year?
Dr. JEWETT. Nothing.

Mr. HOUSTON. Understand my question. I mean from outside contributions.

Dr. JEWETT. May I answer that question a little indirectly? With the onset of the lean years of the depression, it became more and more difficult to get money to operate this institution as it had been operated during the twenties; particularly it became almost impossible to get capital funds to maintain the physical structure down there, so the structures began to deteriorate. We did get enough money, in a very modest way, $2,000, or $6,000 or $7,000 a year, to operate the place. When we came before you last year, the thought was that if the Federal Government, having established this area for biological study and created a very distinguished Board of Directors to operate it, and having made provision in the Act of establishment that you might appropriate up to $10,000, took over the burden of maintenance of the physical plant in which people could work, we could, from private sources, get enough money to operate. And we asked, as I remember it, last year for $10,000, practically all of it to be spent in repairing and renewing the physical plant down there. We told you at that time that $10,000 for a single year would not repair all the damage that had been done.

Well, Congress decided not to make that appropriation, but the fact, that having set this thing up, you apparently did not think well enough of it to maintain it, and put a considerable damper on the approach to private funds in order to get the necessary six, seven, or eight thousand dollars a year to operate the laboratory. The result was that the amount of money which we actually got in this year was

only $2,300. And the only way the directors have been able to operate was because at the time the Federal Government established this area we had a few thousand dollars left as a cash reserve, and that money was transferred to the operation of the place. So that I think last year we operated on about $5,000.

Mr. HOUSTON. Did you do the repairing?

Dr. JEWETT. No; Heavens, no; no repairing. That is just to maintain it.

Mr. HOUSTON. And your cash reserve has been used up?

Dr. JEWETT. The cash reserve has been used up and the situation now is that, unless we can get a few thousand dollars more, the place will be just closed up and substantially all of the potential values that have accumulated over the 20 years will be dissipated.

SALARIES OF EMPLOYEES

Mr. FITZPATRICK. There is nothing that goes to salaries?
Dr. JEWETT. Yes; there has to be a little bit.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Only a small amount?

Dr. JEWETT. Only a small amount. There is a caretaker, two laborers, a cook, and a part-time clerk.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. The most of the people volunteer their services? Dr. JEWETT. All of the people who go down there and work go at their own expense and, while there is a mess maintained, it is maintained on the no-profit, no-loss basis. Such tables as there are are maintained by the universities or contributing agencies. They pay the salaries of the people who go down there and they pay their expenses. The only salary expenses that are incurred by the directors are those which have to do with the permanent establishment. Mr. FITZPATRICK. With the upkeep of the place?

Dr. JEWETT. With the upkeep of the place.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Doctor. you say you want only a few thousand dollars. Why in the world can you not go out and get from the Rockefeller or the Carnegie set-up, or some of the institutions that are interested in things of that kind, that small amount of money?

Dr. JEWETT. We cannot get money for capital expenditures in these days.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Why not, if it is important?

Dr. JEWETT. Because, take the Carnegie, for instance—I happen to know a little about it-they, like everybody else, have had a great reduction in income; they also have a tremendous number of important problems and they have a large number of commitments and they are drawing in, being forced to draw in, their horns. And while they may be able to give us a little money for operation, I am absolutely certain none of those institutions will give money for capital expenditures in these times.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I just want to call your attention to the fact that when Dr. Barbour was here a year ago and he was asked to give any practical contribution that the studies had made over the years he replied "Well, the place was not set up with the idea it was ever going to be practical at all."

Dr. JEWETT. Yes; I remember Dr. Barbour saying that. But you must understand Dr. Barbour is primarily a fundamental scientist.

and fundamental scientists are people who go about their work primarily to acquire new knowledge. I am not a fundamental scientist; at the same time, in my own show, I know perfectly well from 30 years' experience that I get more practical values out of the work of these fundamental scientist people than we ever get out of the work of the fellows who simply take known knowledge and apply it. So, just as a businessman, I think the maintenance of this thing at the small cost is potentially a very desirable thing.

STUDIES BEING CARRIED ON

Mr. WOODRUM. What else are you doing besides studying the termite problem, Doctor?

Dr. JEWETT. I have mentioned fungus.

Mr. STARNES. And optical instruments.

Dr. JEWETT. Yes, sir; also, I understand they are doing quite a lot of work in connection with the study of monkeys and sloths down there, in connection with the adrenal-gland secretions. I am an amateur now; I am simply telling you what they tell me.

It is known that human beings in the tropics cannot do the same. amount of exertion without adverse results that you can in the more normal climates, and it is known that these ductless glands operate differently under those conditions than they do up in the more temperate climates. It is also known that animals operate much the And the reason, I understand, why they have taken on sloths, which are native there-and there are plenty of them-and monkeys, is that the one is a very slow-moving lethargic kind of animal, and the other is a quick-moving one. And they are studying them and the people who are interested are going down there and studying those animals with a view to seeing if they cannot find out from the study of those lower animals, one involved at the one end of the scale and the other at the other end, solution of their problems which will be helpful to the solution of man's problems.

For instance, last year, if Congress had seen fit to give us the $10,000, I think we would have spent all of that $10,000, just as was indicated, for the repair of the physical plant. But because it was not given and because of the very fact it was not given, it raised difficulties, in this strenuous time, of our getting money. The thing I think you have before you indicates that we may have to spend a little of the money for the actual operation, unless we can get additional private support, and my own feeling, from talking with these various people and those who might support the work down there, indicates that once the men are assured this thing is not going to fold up, they will support it.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. In other words, if you do not get some Federal aid, it is likely to close up?

Dr. JEWETT. I would go further than that and say, if we do not get this small amount of Federal aid, it will close up.

Mr. WOODRUM. Do you think this request will increase, or that

this is just about what will be required?

Dr. JEWETT. That is the total amount that can be asked for.
Mr. WOODRUM. Thank you very much, Doctor.