THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



A T A meeting of the Board of Man- 



Z\ agers, January 20, which was at- 

 Xjl tended by every member of the 

 Board in Washington, Mr. O. H. Titt- 

 mann, Superintendent of the U. S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, who for the past 

 five years has been the Vice-President of 

 the Society and was one of its founders, 

 was unanimously elected President to 

 succeed the late Henry Gannett, and 

 Rear Admiral John E. Pillsbury, United 

 States Navy, retired, was unanimously 

 elected Vice-President. The other offi- 

 cers of the Society were re-elected. 



President Tittmann was born at Belle- 

 ville, Illinois, August 20, 1850. At the age 

 of 17 he entered the United States Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey and has worked his 

 way up to the superintendency of that 

 world-famous scientific bureau. During 

 his career many notable experiences have 

 been his lot. In 1874 he went to Japan 

 as assistant astronomer of an expedition 

 to observe the transit of Venus. In the 

 years immediately following he was en- 

 gaged in coast-survey work on both the 

 Atlantic and Pacific coasts. 



From 1889 to 1893 ^^^"- Tittmann was 

 in charge of the United State standards 

 of weight and measure. In 1890 he went 

 to Paris to bring to the United States the 

 standard meter which is now so carefully 

 kept at the Bureau of Standards and 

 which has become the basis of all our 

 exact measures. At the same time he 

 studied the systems of standards at Paris, 

 London, and Berlin. He was a delegate 

 to the International Geodetic Conference 

 in Berlin in 1895, ^"^^ became a member 

 of the Permanent Commission of the In- 

 ternational Geodetic Association in 1900. 



In 1895 he became assistant in charge 

 of the United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey Office, and in 1899 Assistant Su- 

 perintendent. His appointment as Super- 

 intendent of the Survey dates from De- 

 cember, 1900. 



Mr. Tittmann was appointed to repre- 

 sent the United States in marking the 

 boundary between Alaska and Canada, 

 and in 1904 was appointed United States 

 Commissioner of the Alaskan boundary 

 and northern boundaries excepting the 

 Great Lakes. 



Rear Admiral John E. Pillsbury was 

 born at Lowell, ^Massachusetts, December 



15, 1845, and graduated from the United 

 States Naval Academy in 1867, becom- 

 ing an ensign in 1868 and a captain in 

 1902. For ten years he was engaged in 

 coast-survey service, commanding the 

 Coast Survey steamer Blake, during 

 which time he made a very complete in- 

 vestigation of the phenomena of the Gulf 

 Stream. He anchored the Bloke in that 

 ocean current and kept it there for a 

 period of two years, observing the cur- 

 rent at various depths below the surface 

 by means of an instrument of his own 

 invention. He established the position 

 of the axis of the stream off Cape Hat- 

 teras and in the Straits of Florida and 

 determined many of the laws by which 

 its flow is governed. (See "The Grandest 

 and Alost Mighty Terrestrial Phenom- 

 enon," by John E. Pillsbury, in the Na- 

 TiONAi, Ge;ographic ]\Iagazine, August, 

 1912.) He commanded the dynamite 

 cruiser Vesuvius off Santiago during the 

 Spanish- American War. In 1905 he was 

 chief of stafif of the North Atlantic fleet, 

 and chief of the Bureau of Navigation 

 in 1 908- 1 909. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE 



Alembers of the Society are urged to 

 remember the following facts : 



All remittances covering annual dues, 

 purchase of books, panoramas, maps, 

 bound volumes, etc., should be made di- 

 rect to the National Geographic Society, 

 Washington, D. C. 



Remittances should be made by New 

 York draft, postal, or express money 

 order. Cash should not be sent unless 

 the letter is registered. 



Inasmuch as the Post-Office Depart- 

 ment does not reforward second-class 

 mail, the Gi^ographic Magazine will not 

 follow you unless you notify us of your 

 change of address, giving the old address 

 at the same time. It takes three weeks 

 in order to make a change of address 

 effective, because of the necessity of ad- 

 dressing 400,000 magazine wrappers in 

 advance. 



In sending in nominations please use 

 the blank form always to be found in 

 the back part of the magazine, or write 

 for booklet of application forms, which 

 will be furnished upon request. 



218 



