286 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



its Philadelphia session in November, 1881, is, in the opinion of the academy, of 

 sufficient importance to be referred to a committee of chemists, members of this 

 academy, with the request that they give Dr. Collier's results and methods a 

 careful consideration, and report at their early convenience the conclusions to 

 which they come." ^^■' 



The President, William B. Rogers, appointed as the com- 

 mittee Benj. Silliman, Samuel W. Johnson, Charles F. Chandler 

 and J. Lawrence Smith. Not long after the session closed, the 

 attention of the Commissioner of Agriculture, George B. Loring, 

 was called by the President to the fact that the Academy had the 

 sorghum experiments under consideration, and Mr. Loring 

 thereupon transmitted certain documents for the use of the com- 

 mittee, with the remark that " if this reference involves a scien- 

 tific investigation of the sorghum question he will be greatly 

 obliged for the report." At the same time, the committee was 

 enlarged by the appointment of Wm. H. Brewer, C. A. Goess- 

 man and Gideon E. Moore as additional members. The last 

 two were not members of the Academy. 



At the April session of the succeeding year, 1882, an abstract 

 of the report of the committee was read before the Academy, 

 and the first draft of the report itself was also submitted. The 

 complete report was transmitted to the Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture in the following November. Mr. Loring refers to the 

 document in his report for 1882 in the following terms: 



" At the request of the chemist of the department, I submitted the sorghum 

 analyses and work of his division to the National Academy of Sciences on the 

 30th of January last for investigation by that body. A committee appointed for 

 that purpose entered upon their work with great zeal and energj-, and their 

 report, which was laid before me, was, on July 21, withdrawn formally by 

 the secretary of the academy ' for such action as the academy may deem neces- 

 sary.' On the 15th of November current, the president of the academy presented 

 to me the final report of that institution, a long and elaborate document, contain- 

 ing a review of the history of the sorghum industry for twenty-five years, a state- 

 ment of the scientific investigations made in this country and in Europe into the 

 quality of sorghum and maize as sugar producing plants, a careful examination of 



'"'Rep. Nat. Acaii. Sci. for i88i, p. 19. This paper will be found on pages 64 and 65 of 

 the report of the committee of the Academy on sorghum. For tlie full title of the latter 

 see the footnote on page 287. 



