226 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



" No portion of the appropriation granted by the Secretary of War has been 

 expended by the committee." ^'' 



This report appears at first somewhat enigmatic, because the 

 inference from it would be that the purity of whiskey depended 

 on its age. In one sense, however, this is true because, as is well 

 known, some of the poisonous components of the complex dis- 

 tillate break up in the lapse of time into less harmful ethers, 

 esters and higher alcohols. It follows, therefore, that the older 

 the whiskey, the less harmful its ingredients, and in this sense it 

 is purer. 



The practice of prescribing alcohol instead of whiskey as a 

 stimulant, as recommended by the committee, is sometimes 

 adopted in hospitals and has the sanction of physicians. 



COMMITTEE ON EXPERIMENTS ON THE EXPANSION 

 OF STEAM. 1864 



It is recorded in the first Annual of the Academy that on 

 February 29, 1864, " the Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the 

 Navy, invited the appointment of a committee of three members 

 of the Academy to act jointly with three members named by the 

 Department and with three members of the Franklin Institute 

 of Pennsylvania, for the promotion of the Mechanic Arts, to 

 conduct, witness, and report upon experiments which may be 

 agreed upon by the Commission on the expansion of Steam. 

 The experiments are to be reported as early as practicable to 

 the Department, and to be submitted also to the National 

 Academy of Sciences for its judgment and suggestions." " The 

 investigation was undertaken by authority of Congress. 



The Academy appointed as its committee Fairman Rogers, 

 F. A. P. Barnard and Joseph Saxton. The Navy Department 

 appointees were Horatio Allen, Chas. H. Davis (a member of 

 the Academy) and B. F. Isherwood, and those of the Franklin 

 Institute, J. H. Towne, J. V. Merrick, and R. A. Tilghman. 



"' Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1864, p. 5. Only Torrey and LeConte signed the report. The 

 other members were absent. 



"Ann. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1863-64, p. 39. 



