52 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
promoted the establishment of their national observatory and have sustained its 
progress.” 54 
The second resolution related to the determination of longi- 
tudes telegraphically, in accordance with a method perfected 
by Dr. Gould while connected with the United States Coast Sur- 
vey. Having listened to a paper by Lieutenant-Commander 
F. M. Green on the results obtained in the Hydrographic Office 
of the Navy Department on foreign coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, 
the Academy, in a resolution, expressed its hope that the work 
might be extended to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which 
resolution was communicated to the Secretary of the Navy. 
Fairman Rogers, who had served as treasurer of the Academy 
for a period of 18 years, beginning with its organization, re- 
signed in April, 1881, and Mr. J. H. C. Coffin was elected to 
succeed him.*” In this year and the two years following, the 
Academy was much occupied with matters relating to trust 
funds. The director of the Washburn Observatory at the 
University of Wisconsin, James C. Watson, who was a member 
of the Academy, died on November 23, 1880, and bequeathed 
the residue of his estate, after certain bequests to relatives and 
friends had been satisfied, to the Academy for establishing a 
medal, “‘ to be awarded, with a further gratuity of one hundred 
dollars, from time to time to the person in any country who shall 
make any astronomical discovery or produce any astronomical 
work worthy of special reward and contributing to our science ”; 
and also “ for preparing and publishing tables of the motion of 
all the planets which have been discovered by me [ J. C. Watson] 
as soon as it may be practicable to do so.” The estate was found 
to be in an involved condition, and it was not until July 5, 1882, 
that the claims against it were settled. On that date the following 
decree of court was handed down: 
* Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 1, pp. 175, 176. 
“This year a committee, of which Professor J. E. Hilgard was the chairman, was 
appointed to consider and report on means for obtaining a legal value for the degrees of 
the Baumé hydrometer. The committee reported progress in 1882, but appears to have 
reached no practical conclusion. (See Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 1, pp. 199, 208.) 
EE 
