2 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



" Such matters as are presented to the Department will be referred to you for 

 examination and report by the Commission. 



" I am respectfully, etc., 



" GIDEON WELLES, 



" Sec'y of Navy. 

 " COMMODORE CHARLES H. DAVIS, 



" Chief of Bureau of Navigation." 1 



Captain C. H. Davis, who published a life of his father, Rear- 

 Admiral Charles H. Davis, in 1899, wrote as follows regarding 

 the labors of this Commission : 



" This commission was no sinecure, and was constantly in session, for it was at 

 this time that mechanical and scientific ingenuity was beginning to be felt in 

 application to naval construction and equipment, and to this commission were 

 referred the innumerable plans and proposals for new inventions and devices with 

 which the government at Washington was flooded. This commission is inter- 

 esting because it led to the establishment of the National Academy of Sciences." 2 



From the designation " Permanent Commission," it might nat- 

 urally be inferred that this body was preceded by an organiza- 

 tion or board of a temporary character, but such appears not to 

 have been the fact. There was, apparently, but one Commission, 

 which owed its rather peculiar name to an endeavor on the part 

 of Admiral Davis to find a designation corresponding to the 

 term " Select Commission " sometimes employed by the British 

 Government. 8 



Admiral Davis was appointed Chief of the Bureau of Naviga- 

 tion in the Navy Department in July, 1862, and resided in Wash- 

 ington from November of that year until April, 1865. During 

 that time, according to Captain Davis, " he wrote home almost 

 every day." Among the published letters of this period are four 

 which throw a strong light on the steps which led to the organiza- 

 tion of the Permanent Commission and the Academy. They 



1 Letters to Heads of Bureaus (manuscript), vol. 4, July 10, 1861, to December 17, 1868, 



P- 153- 



2 Davis, C. H. Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear-Admiral, 1807-1877, by his son, 

 Captain Charles H. Davis. New York, 1899, p. 286. Captain Davis later reached the rank 

 of Rear-Admiral, but to distinguish him from his father, he is referred to below as Captain 

 Davis. See also G. Brown Goode, "The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896," p. 152. 



8 See Admiral Davis' letter of February 24, 1863, quoted on p. 3. 



