52 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



promoted the establishment of their national observatory and have sustained its 

 progress. "^ 



The second resolution related to the determination of longi- 

 tudes telegraphically, in accordance with a method perfected 

 by Dr. Gould while connected with the United States Coast Sur- 

 vey. Having listened to a paper by Lieutenant-Commander 

 F. M. Green on the results obtained in the Hydrographic Office 

 of the Navy Department on foreign coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, 

 the Academy, in a resolution, expressed its hope that the work 

 might be extended to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which 

 resolution was communicated to the Secretary of the Navy. 



Fairman Rogers, who had served as treasurer of the Academy 

 for a period of i8 years, beginning with its organization, re- 

 signed in April, 1881, and Mr. J. H. C. Coffin was elected to 

 succeed him.^" In this year and the two years following, the 

 Academy was much occupied with matters relating to trust 

 funds. The director of the Washburn Observatory at the 

 University of Wisconsin, James C. Watson, who was a member 

 of the Academy, died on November 23, 1880, and bequeathed 

 the residue of his estate, after certain bequests to relatives and 

 friends had been satisfied, to the Academy for establishing a 

 medal, " to be awarded, with a further gratuity of one hundred 

 dollars, from time to time to the person in any country who shall 

 make any astronomical discovery or produce any astronomical 

 work worthy of special reward and contributing to our science " ; 

 and also " for preparing and publishing tables of the motion of 

 all the planets which have been discovered by me [J. C. Watson] 

 as soon as it may be practicable to do so." The estate was found 

 to be in an involved condition, and it was not until Julv t;, 1882, 

 that the claims against it were settled. On that date the following 

 decree of court was handed down : 



" Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. i, pp. 175, 176. 



''"This year a committee, of which Professor J. E. Hilgard was the chairman, was 

 appointed to consider and report on means for obtaining a legal value for the degrees of 

 the Baume hydrometer. The committee reported progress in 1882, but appears to have 

 reached no practical conclusion. (See Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. i, pp. 199, 208.) 



