RECORDS OF MEETINGS. 693 



Edward Atkinson, in presenting the first two copies of ii 

 complete report issued by the Experiment Station in Insurance 

 Engineering on Diffusion of Light and Corrosion of Steel, said : 



" In our practice as underwriters we are called upon to deal with heat 

 and light from a very different point of view as compared to that of pure 

 science. In order to be prepared for questions in the future on so-called 

 fire-proof construction, corrosion, and other matters, I have called upon 

 my clients in tlie Factory Mutual Companies to assess themselves at the 

 rate of one cent per hundred dollars of their insurance and to place in 

 my hands a sum of money to be expended in what I have named the 

 Insurance Engineering Experiment Station. In response I have received 

 between fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) and sixteen thousand dollars 

 ($16,000), in spending which I have a free hand: but I have placed 

 myself under an Advisory Committee consisting of the Directors of the 

 Insurance Company of which I am President ; chiefly under the advice 

 of the p]xecutive Committee, Messrs. Arthur T. Lyman, Howard Stock- 

 ton, and Theophilus Parsons. 



" We are about to have a sufficient area of land placed at our disposal 

 on a long lease, and the representatives of various types of fire-proof 

 construction are each to put up a building which shall be tested by fire 

 and water and lapse of time, but which will also serve more than ample 

 for our laboratories and experiments. 



" All this is preliminary to laying out a course of instruction in Insur- 

 ance Engineering and a year hence transferring the control of the Station 

 to the Institute of Technology. 



"In the interval if any members of the Academy want an opportunity 

 to apply high temperature at or above the melting-point of cast-iron for 

 a considerable period of time, we expect to have buildings of ten or 

 twelve foot cube constructed for that purpose, and shall place them at 

 their disposal. 



"I will send to any member any reasonable number of copies of the 

 report on the Diffusion of Light and the Corrosion of Steel on applica- 

 tion by card addressed to my office, as we have issued a very large 

 edition in order to interest men of Science, architects, and engineers in 

 the general subject." 



Tlie following pa{)ers were presented by title: — 

 Contributions from tlie Harvard Mineralogical Museum. — XII. 

 (1) " liabingtonite from Somerville, Mass." (2) " Babing- 



