to aid in the study of the occurrence of certain elements suspected to be present in small quantities in some meteorites. This work has been successfully completed, and the final report is ready for submission to the academy; the report contains a tabulation of all available trustworthy analyses of meteorites, and is accompanied by a special paper on the occurrence in meteorites of francolite or some allied phosphatic mineral in place of the apatite of terrestrial rocks. The committee recommends that the meteorites remaining from the purchases by Dr. Merrill be deposited by the National Academy of Sciences in the United States National Museum. Prof. S. A. Mitchell, University of Virginia, has applied for a grant of $500 to aid in the computation of orbits of meteors. Dr. Charles P. Olivier, president of the American Meteor Society, has computed orbits from some 9,000 observations of meteor paths, and has some thousand observations awaiting reduction. He has published two important papers containing several hundred computed orbits. The committee recommends the grant of $500 to Prof. S. A. Mitchell, to aid in computations of orbits of meteors. The cash balance of income now available for grants is $874.87, and the invested income is $1,532.50. EDWARD W. MORLEY. Chairman. REPORT OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD FUND. Chairman. E. E. BARNARD. REPORT OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE WOLCOTT GIBBS FUND. The directors of the Wolcott Gibbs fund for chemical research have the honor to present their annual report to the National Academy of Sciences. Since the last report three grants have been made from the income of the fund as follows: III. One hundred dollars to Prof. W. J. Hale, Ann Arbor, to pay for assistance in a research on derivatives of 2.3-diacetylpentadiene, voted May 15, 1914. Prof. Hale reports that he has prepared the cyclopentadiopyridazine and the corresponding phenyl compound, and determined their composition. He hopes to finish the research before the summer vacation. IV. Two hundred dollars to Prof. W. D. Haskins, University of Chicago, for making a special potentiometer and galvanometer to study cobaltammines and ternary systems of fused salts. Voted November 25, 1914. Prof. Haskins reports that a beginning has been made on the work in spite of his severe sickness and the fact that the war has prevented him from obtaining part of the apparatus from Germany. V. A second grant of $100 to Prof. Mary E. Holmes of Mount Holyoke College for assistance in her work on the electrolytic determination of cadmium. Voted March 18, 1915. Prof. Holmes reports that she has purchased platinum electrodes of a new form, and with these has studied the deposition of cadmium and copper, so that she is now beginning to study the electrical separation of cadmium from other metals. The unexpended income of the fund amounted on April 1 to $111.99. C. L. JACKSON, 25049°-S. Doc. 264, 64-1-2 Chairman. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE MURRAY FUND. The committee on the Sir John Murray fund has to report that during the year 1913 there were exceptional and extraordinary expenses due to the designing and striking off of the Agassiz medal, rendered necessary by the terms of the gift. The committee deemed best not to touch the original fund, and the income derived from this fund at that time was not sufficient to meet these expenses. The committee therefore, with the consent of the treasurer, borrowed from the general fund of the academy a sum sufficient to meet these needs. On December 31, 1914, a portion of this indebtedness was repaid from the income derived from the Murray fund, leaving about $300 still due. By the end of the present calendar year the entire indebtedness of the Murray fund to the general fund will have been paid, leaving the Murray fund out of debt and prepared to meet the legitimate requirements of the fund. This Murray fund ($6,000) is now drawing interest, and your committee in charge of this fund will be prepared in another year to recommend the bestowal of a second Agassiz medal, as intended by the donor of the gift, Sir John Murray, or possibly to suggest to the academy a contribution to further the science of oceanography. ARNOLD HAGUE, Chairman. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON AWARD OF BARNARD MEDAL FOR MERITORIOUS SERVICE IN SCIENCE. Your committee on award of the Barnard medal begs leave to submit the following report: The committee has considered many candidates, of which several have been esteemed generally worthy of recommendation for the medal in question. The terms of the specifications concerning the award of this medal impose, however, certain restrictions which must be borne in mind. These specifications are contained in the following paragraph from the will of the founder of the fund provided for the quinquennial bestowal of this medal: "A gold medal of the value of $200, established by the provisions of the will of President Barnard and endowed by him, known as the 'Barnard medal for meritorious service to science,' is awarded quinquennially to such person, if any, whether a citizen of the United States or any other country, as shall within the five years next preceding have made such discovery in physical or astronomical science, or such novel application of science to purposes beneficial to the human race, as in the judg ment of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States shall be esteemed most worthy of such honor." Observing the limitations here set forth and giving careful attention to the individual merits of the candidates considered, your committee has reached the unanimous conclusion that William Henry Bragg, professor of physics in the University of Leeds, and his son, W. L. Bragg, now a student at the University of Cambridge, should be recommended for the next award. The reasons which have led your committee to this conclusion are briefly indicated in the following statement: The doctrine of atomism, foreshadowed poetically by Leucippus, Democritus, and Lucretius, and raised to the dignity of an exceedingly fruitful hypothesis by Dalton and the modern schools of chemists and physicists, is now approaching the longsought stage of verification and demonstration. Since the time of Dalton a multitude of investigators have contributed continuously toward the attainment of this advanced stage, but progress has been remarkably cumulative and rapid during the past quarter of a century. The fundamental importance of the several fields of research in which the atomic structure of matter is now being established is sufficiently indicated by the fact that four preceding awards of the Barnard medal have been made for researches in these fields. But this importance is now emphasized anew by the recommendation that the next award of the Barnard medal be made to Messrs. W. H. and W. L. Bragg, father and son, for highly meritorious work in the same fields. About three years ago Dr. Laue and his collaborators of the University of Munich produced some remarkable photographs by passing a narrow beam of X-rays through a crystal of zinc blende. These photographs revealed geometrical figures strikingly suggestive of the molecular structure attributed by crystallographers to such minerals. The bearings of this discovery were quickly appreciated by a number of investigators, and extraordinary advances in crystallography, in the theory of X-radiation, and in the application of X-rays to the study of matter, have rapidly followed. In securing these advances the Messrs. Bragg have been preeminent. By means of a rare combination of experimental skill and theoretical insight they have been able to show that X-rays are essentially light rays of excessively short wave length and that crystalline structure is definitely molecular. They have determined the order of wave length of X-rays and they have also determined the order of the intervals which separate the molecules in certain crystalline forms. In a noteworthy series of luminous publications and in an equally noteworthy series of masterly public expositions they have supplied the initial methods and furnished many of the preliminary results which must lead to a still more productive era in the advancement of molecular physics and hence in the advancement of the entirety of physical science. In view of these achievements your committee hereby unanimously recommends that Messrs. W. H. and W. L. Bragg be proposed to Columbia University for an award of the Barnard medal for the year 1915. For the committee. R. S. WOODWARD. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SOLAR RESEARCH. The committee begs to call the attention of the academy to the publication of Volume IV of the Transactions of the International Union for Cooperation in Solar Research, which contains the complete proceedings of the last meeting in Bonn, reports of the various committees, resolutions adopted by the Union, and several scientific papers on solar and stellar phenomena. The four volumes of transactions already published by the Solar Union may be obtained from Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co., Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street, New York, at $2.50 per volume. Recommended: GEORGE E. HALE, Chairman. BUSINESS FROM THE COUNCIL. (a) That the annual dues for 1915 be $5. (b) That the election of new members and of two members of the council be held Wednesday morning, April 21, 1915. (c) That the treasurer be authorized to pay the annual subscription of 200 francs to the International Association of Academies. (d) That the American Security & Trust Co., of Washington, D. C., and Spencer Trask & Co., of New York City, be designated fiscal advisers of the academy for 1915-16. (e) That the time and place of the autumn meeting, 1915, be left to the president and the home secretary with power. () That the following bequest from Mrs. Mary Anna Palmer Draper be accepted: [Extract from the will of Mrs. Mary Anna Palmer Draper, page 7, section 9 (second paragraph).] I give and bequeath to the National Academy of Sciences, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000). RESOLUTION. The National Academy of Sciences, desiring to express its deep appreciation of the recent bequest of Mrs. Henry Draper, places this minute upon its records. The name of Draper occupies a unique place in the annals of science in America. John William Draper, author of "The Intellectual History of Europe," was a pioneer of American research, adding by his own investigations to the progress of the first half of the nineteenth century. Henry Draper, his son, an early member of the National Academy, was one of the founders of astrophysics. He was the first to photograph nebula and the first to secure photographs of stellar spectra of sufficiently perfect definition to show the lines. His researches, made with instruments of his own construction, are being continued on a large scale by the Harvard College observatory. Mary Anna Palmer Draper, wife of Henry Draper, and his devoted assistant in astrophysical research, has endowed the Henry Draper Memorial to continue his investigations. Her interest in the National Academy was manifested by her constant attendance at its meetings, her receptions of the academy at her home in New York, and by two important gifts. The first of these, made in 1883, established the Draper gold medal for researches in astronomical physics, and provided, through excess income, for the assistance of many investigations in this field. This gift has now been supplemented by a bequest of $25,000, to be known as the John S. Billings fund, the income of which will be applied at present toward the support of the recently established Proceedings. The academy feels that this appropriate memorial of one of its leading members, providing funds greatly needed for a new publication, and closing a long series of exceptional services to science, will be widely and gratefully appreciated. A copy of this resolution was directed to be forwarded to the family of Mrs. Draper. REPORT OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE PROCEEDINGS. The editorial board of the Proceedings reports to the academy that four numbers of the Proceedings have now been issued, containing 67 original papers in addition to the report of the autumn meeting, notices of scientific memoirs, and announcements. These numbers have consisted of 258 pages, an average of 64 pages per number and of about 4 pages per article. The papers are distributed among different sciences as follows: Mathematics, 11; astronomy, 11; physics, none; chemistry, 11; geology, 2; paleontology, 1; botany, 4; zoology (including genetics), 12; physiology, 8; pathology. none; anthropology, 5; psychology, 2. It will be noticed that the subjects of physics. of geology and paleontology, and of pathology have been very inadequately represented; and the editorial board urges members of the academy in these fields to endeavor to remedy this situation. An edition of 3,000 copies of these four numbers has been printed. Of this edition about 900 are to be sent abroad to the libraries of universities and other active research institutions upon a mailing list prepared with great care by the foreign secretary, aided by members of the editorial board. Of this edition 1,200 copies have also been distributed in this country by the home secretary to important libraries and to the thousand persons whose names are starred in Cattell's American Men of Science. ARTHUR A. NOYES, Chairman. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE COLLECTION OF HISTORICAL PORTRAITS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND INSTRUMENTS, INCLUDING INSTRUMENTS PURCHASED AT THE EXPENSE OF THE TRUST FUNDS. Your committee on the collection of historical portraits, manuscripts, and instruments, including instruments purchased at the expense of the trust funds which are no longer needed for the original purpose, begs to report as follows: That the collection of portraits of the members of the academy has been brought together and arranged alphabetically. That the foreign secretary has turned over the medal from the Groningen Academy celebrating its three hundredth anniversary. That the following apparatus was presented by Mrs. Henry Draper and has been deposited in the United States National Museum: 1 slit. 1 spectrum photograph (broken). 1 liquid prism cell. 1 double liquid prism cell. 1 prism with 2-inch faces. 1 package attempts of Henry Draper to rule gratings. 1 speculum metal ruled surface 2 inches square. 1 Bunsen burner. 2 boxes, 12 photographs each. 1 box, 50 photographs. 1 box, 34 photographs. 1 box, 22 photographs. 1 box, 15 daguerreotypes. 13 Geisler? tubes. CHARLES D. WALCOTT, Chairman. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF CHAIRMEN OF SECTIONS. The committee of chairmen of sections of the academy recommends the following rule in regard to the nomination of members: The chairman of each section of the academy shall submit to the members of his section, not later than November 1 of each year, a ballot containing the names of all those persons who received not less than 2 votes in the nominating ballot of the preceding year and of any other persons who were newly proposed for consideration at that time. Each member of the section shall be expected to return this ballot to the chairman within two weeks with his signature and with crosses placed against the names of those persons whom he is prepared to indorse for nomination. Each member may also write upon the ballot in a place provided for the purpose any new names which he desires to have included in the ballot to be submitted to the section in the following year. The vote resulting from this ballot shall be regarded as informal. The chairman shall then submit to the members of his section a new ballot showing the results of the informal vote; and each member shall be expected to return this ballot to the chairman with his signature and with crosses placed against the names of those persons whom he will indorse for nomination. The chairman shall then certify to the home secretary, prior to January 1, the names of those persons who have been voted for on this second ballot by a majority of the members of the section, and shall furnish him a list of the publications of these nominees, as required by the constitution. A. A. NOYES, Chairman. The recommendation of the committee was adopted by the academy as an amendment to Rule IV (p. 58, seq.). |