Record. xxvii 



Eeports of Officers for the Year 1899. 

 Submitted January 8, 1900. 

 The President addressed the Academy as follows : — 



It has always been the custom of the Academy to expect of its President 

 some remarks of a more general character than those made by the other 

 officers, with reference to the work which the Academy has been doing dur- 

 ing the year past and with reference to its prospects for the future. I am 

 glad to be able to report that the condition of affairs at the present time, 

 although perhaps not as prosperous as all of us might desire, is still very 

 satisfactory. During the year just closed, the Academy has held sixteen 

 regular meetings, with an average attendance of twenty-one persons, at each 

 of which some subject of scientific interest has been presented and dis- 

 cussed. The papers which have been presented have been of actual scien- 

 tific value, as is shown by the fact that abstracts of them have generally 

 appeared in Science^ the exponent of scientific progress in the United 

 States, and occasionally in Nature^ the best record of current scientific 

 work in the world, as well as in other journals; and the quality of the 

 papers is also shown by the fact that three of those presented have been ac- 

 cepted by universities of good standing as theses for the degree of Doctor 

 of Philosophy. Some of the papers presented have been deemed by the 

 Council worthy of publication in the Transactions of the Academy, and I am 

 glad to announce that during the year we have been able to carry out the 

 programme decided upon last year, namely, the completion of a volume annu- 

 ally, by the publication for 1899 of Volume IX of the Academy's Transac- 

 tions, which contains nine numbers in a volume of about 350 pages, 

 illustrated by thirty-eight plates, two of them in color. Seven hundred and 

 sixty-three copies of this volume have been distributed, as follows: 229 to 

 members of the Academy, 140 to scientific societies in the United States, 

 and 394: to foreign scientific societies with which the Academy stands in ex- 

 change relations, as is shown by the report of the Librarian. 



The library has grown during the year by the addition of 745 numbers, the 

 details being given in the Librarian's report, which makes the library at 

 present a collection of 13,215 books and 9,430 pamphlets. While the number 

 of additions to the library is not as great as during the year 1898, this should 

 not be looked upon as a decrease in the rate of growth of the library, but 

 only as a fluctuation, due to the fact that many of the publications of the 

 societies with which we exchange are irregularly issued and irregularly 

 distributed. 



From the report of the Treasurer it will b2 seen that there is a consid- 

 erable balance in the treasury after paying all expenses for the year, but 

 it should be particularly noticed that of this balance $2,000.00 is a portion 

 of the capital of the Academy which has heretofore been invested and pro- 

 ducing an income, and which the Council will no doubt immediately reinvest, 

 and that the remaining $239.13 of this balance is considerably less than 

 the balance at the beginning of 1899. The report also shows that we have 

 actually spent more money for the publication of Transactions than we have 



