298 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
observatory, “to investigate the laws of solar and terrestrial 
radiation and their application to meteorology, with such other 
investigations in exact science as the Government might assign 
to it.” Attention was also called to the desirability of having 
in this department a bureau of standards, which might include 
the Bureau of Weights and Measures. 
Should Congress consider it inadvisable to establish a new 
Department of Science, the committee suggested that all the 
scientific bureaus be assembled under some one of the Depart- 
ments then existing. In case either action was taken, the Com- 
mittee recommended that a permanent scientific commission be 
created to direct the policy of the several bureaus, this com- 
mission to consist of the Secretary of the Department of 
Science, or other Department to which the bureaus should be 
assigned (who should be president ex officio), the President of 
the National Academy of Sciences, the Secretary of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, “‘ two civilians of high scientific reputation,” 
an officer of the Engineer Corps of the Army, a professor of 
mathematics in the Navy, the Superintendent of the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey, the Director of the Geological Survey, the 
head of the meteorological bureau. 
This report was sent to the Government Commission on 
October 16, 1884, together with certain letters of the heads of the 
several scientific bureaus concerned. 
The more comprehensive recommendations of the committee 
of the Academy have not been adopted by Congress up to the 
present time. Neither a Department of Science nor a general 
scientific commission has been established, but several of the 
changes proposed have been made. The meteorological service, 
formerly combined with the Signal Service of the Army, has 
become a separate bureau under the Department of Agricul- 
ture." A Bureau of Standards has been established in the 
Department of Commerce and Labor to which has been trans- 
ferred the work of the former Bureau of Weights and Measures. 
“The Department of Agriculture became an executive department on February 9, 1889, 
and the Weather Service was transferred to it on October 1, 1890. 
