66 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
President of the National Academy of Sciences. After the death 
of Joseph Henry, the President in 1880 appointed President 
Barnard of Columbia College as his successor. In spite of the 
conscientious efforts of the trustees to apply the income of the 
fund to the purposes intended by Professor Tyndall, certain 
practical difficulties defeated their efforts,” and in the course of 
a number of years the principal and accumulated interest 
together amounted to about $32,000. ‘The circumstances were 
communicated to Professor Tyndall who thereupon modified 
his donation and established three graduate fellowships, each 
with a fund of about $11,000, in the department of physics in 
Harvard College, Columbia College and the University of 
Pennsylvania for the stimulation of original research, and the 
advancement of physical science in the United States. 
1888-1892 
The first Lawrence Smith Medal was awarded in 1888 to 
Professor Hubert A. Newton, Professor of Mathematics at 
Yale University, “in recognition of his eminent services in the 
investigations of the orbits of meteors.” ‘The presentation was 
made on the evening of April 18, 1888, in the lecture-room of 
the National Museum, the President of the Academy, Pro- 
fessor O. C. Marsh, presiding. The first and last paragraphs 
of the report of the committee on the award, which is printed in 
full in volume one of the Proceedings of the Academy.” are 
as follows: 
“Professor Newton’s study of the subject extends over a long series of years, 
and has led to results of very great popular interest as well as scientific impor- 
tance. Meteors in the sense in which the word is now used have from the 
remotest ages attracted the attention of mankind. Observations of greater or 
less value have long been accumulating. Chemistry had shown that meteoric 
bodies which fall upon the earth contain no element not already known as a con- 
stituent of the crust of the earth, but astronomy had not yet brought the wanderers 
of the heavens into a system and shown that they are moving in definite orbits and 
* See Smithsonian Report for 1885, part 1, pp. 25, 26. 
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 1, p. 308. 
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