4 i2 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



search Council, meets triennially at the permanent headquarters 

 in Brussels. Between meetings the work is conducted by an 

 Executive Committee, now comprising one representative each 

 from France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, and the United 

 States, but soon to be enlarged by the addition of other mem- 

 bers. In accordance with the plan presented by the National 

 Academy of Sciences to the London Conference, the United 

 States is represented in the International Research Council by 

 its National Research Council. 



The International Astronomical Union unites in a single body 

 those who formerly took part in the work of the International 

 Chart of the Heavens, the International Union for Cooperation 

 in Solar Research, the International Union, for the Determina- 

 tion of Time and Longitude, International Conferences on 

 Ephemerides, the centralization of astronomical telegrams, and 

 other groups, formally or informally constituted, that dealt with 

 international cooperation in astronomy and its applications. 



The objects of the Union are to facilitate international 

 cooperation in research, and to advance the study of all branches 

 of astronomy. Each country represented in the Union organ- 

 izes a National Committee, preferably in conjunction with its 

 National Research Council, for the purpose of aiding and 

 coordinating its astronomical activities, with special reference 

 to the requirements of international cooperation in research. 

 These Committees also select the delegates to meetings of the 

 International Union. 



The range and variety of international activities in astronomy 

 may be illustrated by an enumeration of the cooperative re- 

 searches and projects already initiated by the Astronomical 

 Union. Thirty-two committees, comprising in their member- 

 ship the leading investigators of all the countries represented 

 in the Union, have undertaken to deal with the following sub- 

 jects: relativity; the republication of astronomical classics; 

 notation, units, and economy of publication; cooperation in 

 the publication of nautical almanacs and astronomical 

 ephemerides; abstracts and bibliographies; the distribution of 



