Inventory

The Russian bear is going into the mountains to see what he can see. President A. P. Karpinsky of the Academy of Sciences of Russia last week reported a newly-organized commission of 200 leading Soviet scientists, which has begun an inventory of Russia's sources of wealth and power. A band of 100 has departed for the Yakutia region (Asia) to survey gold mines, forests, agricultural possibilities. Six were bound for Kirghiz to prospect for metal ores. Thirty were off for Mongolia and 15 for Karelia, seeking radium. Ethnological data, water and wind power, coal and oil sources were to be checked up and unified for Government files and exploitation. A geologist had come in from Turkestan and the Karakuma Desert with news of large sulphur, salt and radium deposits. The model for a proposed economic elevation of the Soviets through linking pure and applied science: Germany after 1870. The model for modern methods of doing this: the post-War U. S.