1897.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 189 



order by the chairman, Prof. R. S. Woodward. 21 members and 

 guests present. 



The first business in order was the election of officers of the 

 section for the ensuing year 1897-8. The chair called for nomi- 

 nations for Chairman and P. H. Dudley was nominated. There be- 

 ing no other nominations and, no one objecting, the Secretary was 

 authorized to cast a ballot for Mr. Dudley. This was done and 

 Mr. Dudley was declared elected as Chairman for the coming year, 



R. Gordon was then nominated as Secretary and, there being 

 no other nominations and no one objecting, the Secretary was 

 authorized to cast a ballot for Mr. Gordon, who was reported as 

 elected Secretary for the ensuing year. 



Upon the request of the Secretary and with the consent of the 

 Section F. L. Tufts presented an abstract of work recently done 

 by him in further testing the correctness of the results obtained 

 with the original form of the Rood flicker photometer. By a 

 very elaborate series of tests by various methods, he found that 

 the true " flicker " when the speed is just sufficient to give a 

 uniform background is independent of color and depends only 

 upon differences of luminosity. 



The paper was discussed by R. S. Woodward and W, Hallock. 

 The paper appears in full on a subsequent page. W. Hallock 

 described several forms of maximum thermometers used in sub- 

 terranean temperature work and described a new form which, 

 it is believed, will obviate some of the difficulties of the U. S. 

 signal service form which has been hitherto used. 



Mr. Hallock also reported upon recent work on subterranean 

 temperatures, referring especially to the Sperrenberg well near 

 Berlin, 4,300 feet, the Wheeling, W. Va., well, 4,500 feet, the 

 new Pittsburg well, 5,386 feet, the Schladabach well near Leip- 

 zig, 5,740, and the incomplete well at Paruschowitch, near Reib- 

 nik, which two 3'ears ago was 6,600 feet deep and was planned to 

 go 2,700 meters (8,800 feet). The well at Pittsburg gave results 

 practically identical with those obtained in the Wheeling well 

 which is forty miles distant but in the same geological forma- 

 tions. The observations at Pittsburg were preliminary, and 



