38 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



iSyo. 15 The amendment was accepted by the Academy on the 

 following year and in 1872, upon the adoption of an amended 

 constitution, 25 new members were elected, having been selected 

 from a list of 29 names submitted by the Class of Mathematics 

 and Physics, and 18 names submitted by the Class of Natural 

 History. A resolution was adopted, however, that after 1872 

 only five members should be elected at any one session of the 

 Academy. 



The year 1870 was further marked by the important cir- 

 cumstance, already mentioned above, that the Bache Fund be- 

 came available. The first allotment from the income which 

 it afforded was made in the following year, in connection with 

 the magnetic survey of the United States. 



A committee was appointed this year to consider measures 

 to secure the successful observation of the short transit of Venus 

 of 1874. The Academy also expressed, in a resolution, its 

 gratification at the appointment by the Government of the 

 Argentine Republic of Dr. B. A. Gould, one of the original 

 members of the Academy, as the director of the new national 

 astronomical observatory at Cordoba. 



The second Vice-President of the Academy, William Chau- 

 venet, died in December, 1870, and the office remained vacant 

 until 1872, when Wolcott Gibbs was elected to succeed him. 



A committee to revise the constitution and the by-laws of the 

 Academy in accordance with the act of Congress, approved 

 July 14, 1870, amending the original act of incorporation, re- 

 ported in 1871. This report was referred to the Council which 

 in 1872 brought it again before the Academy. The constitution 

 and rules, as amended, were unanimously adopted on April 



"July u, 1870. "On motion of Mr. Wilson, the Senate, as in Committee of the 

 Whole, proceeded to consider the bill (S. No. 881) to amend the act to incorporate the 

 National Academy of Sciences. It directs that the act to incorporate the National Academy 

 of Sciences, approved March 3, 1863, be, and the same is hereby, so amended as to remove 

 the limitation of the number of ordinary members of the Academy as provided in the act. 



" The bill was reported to the Senate without amendment, ordered to be engrossed for a 

 third reading, read the third time, and passed." (Congressional Globe, 4ist Congress, 

 2d Session, part 6, p. 5437.) 



The bill passed the House without objection on July 14, 1870, and was approved 

 July 15, 1870. 



