68 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
the said medal.” A recommendation was therefore adopted 
that the donors of these medals should be asked to cancel the 
clause. 
The second award of the Watson Medal was also made in 
1888 to Professor Edward Schonfeld, director of the observ- 
atory at the University of Bonn, Germany, “ for his services in 
cataloguing and mapping the stars visible in our latitudes, and 
especially for his recently published Southern Durchmusterung.” 
‘““As Professor Schonfeld was not present at this meeting, the 
Foreign Secretary was instructed to forward the medal and one 
hundred dollars in gold to him through the German Embassy at 
Washington.” ™ 
A committee appointed by the Academy reported in 1890" 
in favor of the re-adoption of the plan of classifying the mem- 
bership. The constitution of the Academy, in the form in which 
it was originally adopted in January, 1864, provided that the 
membership should be divided into two classes, namely, (a) 
Mathematics and Physics, and (b) Natural History, and that 
the members should arrange themselves in sections, according 
to the subjects which they represented. The organization was 
then, as follows: 
Crass A Crass B 
MaTHEMATICS AND PHysICcS NATURAL HIstTory 
Sections Sections 
. Mathematics. . Mineralogy and Geology. 
I I 
2. Physics. 2. Zoology. 
3. Astronomy, Geography, and Geodesy. 3. Botany. 
4. Mechanics. 4. Anatomy and Physiology. 
5. Chemistry. 5. Ethnology. 
This arrangement continued in force until 1872, when the 
whole system of classes was abolished. The matter came up 
® Proc, Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 1, p. 323- 
*'This year a committee, consisting of Professor S. P. Langley (chairman), Professor 
T. C. Mendenhall, and Professor E. C. Pickering, was appointed, at the suggestion of the 
chairman, “to secure such uniformity of measures in physical apparatus as will promote 
interchangeability of their parts.” The committee appears not to have reported. (See 
Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1890, p. 13.) 
