1889.] 293 



an election for Librarian being held, Mr. Henrj Phillips, Jr., 

 was unanimonsly re-elected to that position. 



On motion, the President was authorized to appoint at his 

 leisure the Standing Committees of the Society, which were 

 subsequently reported by him as follows : 



Finance. 

 Henry Winsor, William B. Eogers, Phillip C. Garrett. 



Publication. 



Daniel G. Brinton, George H. Horn, Samuel Wagner, 



Patterson DuBois, Horace Jayne. 



Hall. 

 J. Sergeant Price, William A. Ingham, Charles A. Oliver. 



Library. 



Edwin J. Houston, William V. McKean, Wm. John Potts, 



Jesse Y. Burk, William H. Greene. 



Mr. William Blasius read a paper, " Is the Signal Service 

 Degenerating ?" and subsequently made some oral remarks on 

 subjects connected with meteorology in general. 



Dr. Morris offered a suggestion as to the probable equivalent 

 in our modern English speech of the ancient Hebrew word— 

 Amen. Sometimes such equivalents may be found in terms 

 that are marked in our dictionaries as obsolete, or provincial, 

 or in terms now in use only among the lower and more igno- 

 rant classes. Thus he had on one occasion been much struck 

 by the description given by an unlettered negro, of a certain 

 pain as a "gugawing " one. We can, in this case, easily trace 

 the origin, as of a dog gnawing at a bone. So, in rendering 

 our assent to a proposition forcibly, we often, to-day, do so 

 with a nod of the head and the utterance of a sound better 

 represented by the letters m'h'n, than by any other. Is not 

 this then to be regarded as the modern representative of this 

 form of earnest solemn assertion ? 



The Committee on the Communication of Prof Goodfellow 



