39 
Committee, it will be readily understood that the reports sub- 
mitted to the Secretary of the Treasury were strictly confi- 
dential in their character. They were therefore not read to 
the Academy, and for the same reasons are not appended to 
this report. J 
Since the presentation of the first report the Annual of the 
National Academy for the years 1863-64 has been prepared 
and published. Copies of the Annual have, in accordance 
with a formal vote of the Academy, been distributed to the 
members of both houses of Congress, and also to the heads 
of the departments under the government of the United 
States. 
At the two sessions of the Academy held during the year 
1864, twenty-five original memoirs were read, making in all 
about forty which have been presented to the Academy dur- 
ing the three stated sessions which have been held since the 
Meeting for organization. 
The following list gives the titles of the memoirs read 
during the past year: — 
1. On the Individuality among Animals, with reference to 
the Questions of Varieties and Species, by Louis Agassiz. 
2. On the Elements of the Mathematical Theory of 
Quantity, by Benjamin Peirce. 
3. On the Discussion of Magnetic Observations made 
at Girard College Observatory in the Years 1840-1845, 
Parts IV., V., and VI.; Horizontal Force; Investigation of 
the Eleven-year Period of the Solar Diurnal Variation and 
Annual Inequality, and of the Influence of the Moon, by 
A. D. Bache, 
4. On the Force of Fired Gunpowder, and the Pressure 
‘o which Heavy Guns are actually subjected in firing, by 
F. A. P. Barnard. 
5. Reduction of the Observations of the Fixed Stars made 
