ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY 57 



Upon the recommendation of a " technical committee," the 

 congress agreed that refracting telescopes should be used in 

 photographing the stars, that stars from the first to the fourteenth 

 magnitude, inclusive, (probably some 2,000,000 in all), should 

 be photographed, and that the telescopes used should have objec- 

 tives with an aperture of 0.33 meters and a focal distance of 

 3.43 meters. The congress then divided into two sections each 

 of which submitted a series of resolutions relative to the conduct 

 of the proposed undertaking. It was found that the directors 

 of six observatories were prepared to agree at once to participate 

 in the work, and in the end 18 observatories assumed a share in 

 it. None of the observatories of the United States, however, 

 joined in the enterprise, which was completed in 1912. It was 

 originally estimated that it would be necessary to make 60,000 

 negatives, but the number was afterwards reduced to about 

 20,000. The expense involved was estimated to exceed 

 $2, 000,000. 40 



The next invitation accepted was from the University of 

 Bologna, which celebrated its Sooth anniversary in June, 1888. 

 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell was appointed to represent the Academy on 

 this occasion. In May, 1891, the Academy again sent a delegate 

 to the Royal Society of Canada, which held its tenth meeting in 

 Montreal on the twenty-seventh of that month. The delegate 

 appointed was the Vice-President, Mr. Francis A. Walker. The 

 President, Professor Marsh, was selected by the Academy as 

 its representative at the tercentenary of the University of 

 Dublin, held in July, 1892. Two years later, in 1894, Dr. I- S. 

 Billings was appointed the delegate of the Academy to the eighth 

 International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held at 

 Budapest in September of that year. 



The subject of trust funds again became prominent in 1884. 

 Professor J. Lawrence Smith, a member of the Academy, and 

 well known as a chemist, and student and collector of meteorites, 

 died in October of the preceding year. His very large collec- 

 tion of meteoric stones was acquired by Harvard University for 



40 See Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1887, pp. 48-53. 



