56 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



The committee cited 21 papers published between 1874 and 

 1884, and gave a brief summary of each, remarking in con- 

 clusion: "Professor Langley has published numerous other 

 papers upon subjects connected with solar or astral physics, but 

 it is believed that those which have now been mentioned will 

 fully justify the recommendation of the committee." 



About 1883 the Academy began the practice of sending 

 delegates to other learned societies and to universities, both in 

 America and in Europe, and in the minutes of the meeting of 

 April of that year we read that on recommendation of the 

 Council it was voted " that the Secretary be directed to acknowl- 

 edge, with thanks, the invitation extended to the Academy by 

 the Royal Society of Canada to send delegates to the meeting to 

 be held at Ottawa, May 22, 1883, and the President be author- 

 ized to appoint delegates to attend the said meeting." Dr. T. 

 Sterry Hunt was appointed delegate on this occasion. 



In 1887, Professor C. H. F. Peters, of Hamilton College, was 

 appointed, at the request of the Academic des Sciences, Paris, 

 to represent the Academy at an international conference held in 

 Paris on April 16 of that year to consider a plan for making a 

 chart of the heavens by photography. At this important con- 

 gress, which extended from April 16 to 25, 1887, fifty-six 

 astronomers, representing sixteen different nationalities, were 

 present. The objects to be attained and the methods to be em- 

 ployed were set forth in the following resolutions, passed at the 

 first session of the congress: 



" i. The progress made in astronomical photography demands that the astron- 

 omers of our time undertake in common the description of the heavens by astro- 

 photographical means. 



" 2. This work is to be done at stations to be selected, with instruments that, 

 in their essential points, ought to be identical. 



" 3. The aim is (a) to make a general photographical chart of the heavens 

 for the present epoch, and to obtain the data which shall permit fixing the posi- 

 tions and the magnitudes of all the stars down to a certain class with the greatest 

 possible precision; (b) to provide the best means for utilizing, for the present 

 epoch as well as for the future, the data furnished by the photographical 



process." 89 



'Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1887, p. 49. 



