ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY 5 1 



In 1 88 1, when the Academy had been in existence for eighteen 

 years, the number of papers which had been read at the scien- 

 tific sessions was no less than 649. Of these papers only five had 

 been published by the Academy, and the President, Professor 

 Rogers, felt that it had not received the recognition by the 

 scientific world which it would have received if the papers of 

 each year had been issued promptly in a journal or some other 

 publication of the Academy. He, therefore, proposed that they 

 should be brought together annually and transmitted with the 

 report to Congress. Though the appeal for the support of the 

 membership in this plan was urgent and was repeated several 

 times, it seems not to have been generally responded to, and the 

 reports continued as before to be made up of only an outline of 

 the proceedings. It can be readily understood that in an organi- 

 zation like the Academy, whose members are for the most part 

 connected with educational or governmental institutions, and are 

 engaged in extended investigations along more or less definite 

 lines, it would be difficult to obtain a series of papers each year 

 for publication. Many communications are necessarily of a 

 preliminary or extemporaneous character, while, on the other 

 hand, such completed papers as are available for publication by 

 the Academy are often so comprehensive, and require so large an 

 amount of illustration that they are unsuitable for an annual 

 report. 



At the spring session of 1880 the Academy took notice in its 

 Proceedings of two astronomical happenings of importance. 

 Dr. B. A. Gould, a member of the Academy, who since 1870 

 had been director of the Argentine National Observatory at 

 Cordoba, completed his " Uranometria Argentina " and atlas 

 of the southern heavens, and upon receipt of a copy of that work 

 the Academy passed this resolution: 



" Resolved, That the Academy .... desires to express its high appreciation 

 of the great and permanent value of that magnificent work, the fruit of the labors 

 of our colleague during many years of absence from his country and home, and 

 which reflects the highest credit on the wise liberality of the statesmen who have 



