The Biggest Prize

The world's most munificent award for scientific achievement is the John and Alice Tyler Ecology Prize. Established in 1973 as a bequest from the co-founder of the Farmers Insurance Group, it carries a tax-free emolument of $150,000--more than the highest amount given Nobel prizewinners--and is awarded annually to the person who has done the most to improve the environment. Last year, when the first Tyler prize was given, the eight-member panel of judges somewhat diminished the impact of the award by dividing it among three men: Yale Ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Smog Expert A.J. Haagen-Smit and U.N. Environmental Chief Maurice Strong.

The judges did not make the same mistake this year. Winnowing hundreds of nominations from 15 countries, they chose the final recipient last week. She is Limnologist Ruth Patrick, 67, a much-honored pioneer in the study of water pollution, who is now chairman of Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences. "She has done more to develop ideas about stream pollution and to bring such ideas forcibly before the world of industry than anyone now working," says Hutchinson. Indeed, Patrick played a key role in shaping the U.S.'s clean water act. Next month she will fulfill the Tyler prize's only stipulation: that the winner be on hand to receive it. Patrick will attend a white-tie ceremony sponsored by California's Pepperdine University (which administers the award) to pick up her latest and biggest honor.

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