1912.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 545 



The following Reports were ordered to be printed: 



REPORT OF THE RECORDING SECRETARY. 



Because, probably, of the division of Science into specialties, 

 it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain interest in the meetings 

 of a society devoted, as the Academy is, to research in the entire 

 field of physics and natural history. In the absence of solicited 

 communications taking more or less the form of lectures, and all 

 the more likely to secure a moderate audience if illustrated by lan- 

 tern views which would be even more attractive could they be 

 presented in the form of moving pictures, there seems no reason, 

 beyond the requirements of routine business, generally irksome, 

 for the holding of the sessions provided for by the by-laws. The 

 practice of reporting in verbal communications the results of current 

 original research has almost entirely ceased, although thirty or 

 forty years ago it was a most important means of sustaining the 

 interest of the meetings, giving distinction to the minutes, and adding 

 to the value of the publications. 



When Leidy, or Cassin, or Meehan, or Cope, or Ryder, or Heil- 

 prin had found out anything, had a new fact or the confirmation 

 of an old one to tell of, they resorted to the "verbal," a substantive 

 with quite a special significance as used in the Academy. These 

 verbal communications were generally reported by the authors for 

 the pages of the Proceedings. For some years back, to the impov- 

 erishment of the meetings, such contributions to science are either 

 embedded in a formal paper presented for publication and seldom or 

 never read except by title, or they are made known to the world in 

 little notes to Science or some other current periodical. 



The consideration of a possible remedy for the existing subsidence 

 of interest in the meetings of the Academy has been referred, to a 

 committee, and it may be that the result will be beneficial. 



Thirteen meetings have been held since last November, with 

 an average attendance of fifty-one — a much higher average than has 

 been recently reported. This is, however, due to the extraordinary 

 attendance on the sessions of the meeting held March 19, 20, and 

 21, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the 



