ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY 57 
Upon the recommendation of a “ technical committee,” the 
congress agreed that refracting telescopes should be used in 
photographing the stars, that stars from the first to the fourteenth 
magnitude, inclusive, (probably some 2,000,000 in all), should 
be photographed, and that the telescopes used should have objec- 
tives with an aperture of 0.33 meters and a focal distance of 
3.43 meters. The congress then divided into two sections each 
of which submitted a series of resolutions relative to the conduct 
of the proposed undertaking. It was found that the directors 
of six observatories were prepared to agree at once to participate 
in the work, and in the end 18 observatories assumed a share in 
it. None of the observatories of the United States, however, 
joined in the enterprise, which was completed in rg12. It was 
originally estimated that it would be necessary to make 60,000 
negatives, but the number was afterwards reduced to about 
20,000. The expense involved was estimated to exceed 
$2,000,000.*° 
The next invitation accepted was from the University of 
Bologna, which celebrated its 8ooth anniversary in June, 1888. 
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell was appointed to represent the Academy on 
this occasion. In May, 1891, the Academy again sent a delegate 
to the Royal Society of Canada, which held its tenth meeting in 
Montreal on the twenty-seventh of that month. The delegate 
appointed was the Vice-President, Mr. Francis A. Walker. The 
President, Professor Marsh, was selected by the Academy as 
its representative at the tercentenary of the University of 
Dublin, held in July, 1892. Two years later, in 1894, Dr. J. S. 
Billings was appointed the delegate of the Academy to the eighth 
International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held at 
Budapest in September of that year. 
The subject of trust funds again became prominent in 1884. 
Professor J. Lawrence Smith, a member of the Academy, and 
well known as a chemist, and student and collector of meteorites, 
died in October of the preceding year. His very large collec- 
tion of meteoric stones was acquired by Harvard University for 
“See Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1887, pp. 48-53. 
