Mat 23, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



773 



bequests and donations and hold the same 

 in trust, to be applied by the said academy 

 in aid of scientific investigations and ac- 

 cording to the will of the donors." 



The funds under the general manage- 

 ment of the academy and their purposes 

 will now be stated in their chronological 

 order. 



1. The A. D. BacJie Fund. — This amounts 

 to over $50,000. It was provided by the 

 will of Alexander Dallas Bache, one of the 

 charter members and the first president of 

 the academy, who was for many years 

 superintendent of the United States Coast 

 Survey. The academy is trustee, and the 

 income is applied to the prosecution of 

 researches in physical and natiiral sciences. 



2. The Joseph Henry Fund. — This fund 

 of $40,000 was contributed by a number of 

 friends and admirers "as an expression of 

 the donors' respect and esteem for Pro- 

 fessor Joseph Henry's personal virtues, 

 their sense of his life's great devotion to 

 science with its results of important dis- 

 coveries and of his constant labors to in- 

 crease and diffuse knowledge and promote 

 the welfare of mankind. ' ' The income was 

 to be paid to Professor Henry during his 

 life, and after his death to his wife and 

 daughters, and after the death of the last 

 survivor the fund is to be delivered to the 

 National Academy of Sciences, "the prin- 

 cipal to be forever held intact and the in- 

 come to be from time to time applied by 

 the said National Academy of Sciences in 

 its sole discretion to assist meritorious in- 

 vestigators, especially in the direction of 

 original research. ' ' Happily this fund has 

 not yet come into the possession of the 

 academy. It is not necessary to remind 

 this audience that Professor Henry was 

 for years the secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



3. The J. C. Watso7i Fund. — This amounts 

 to $25,000, and was provided by the will of 



Professor J. C. Watson, a distinguished 

 member of the academy, who died in 1880. 

 The income "shall be expended by said 

 academy for the promotion of astronomical 

 science." It is also provided "that the 

 academy may, if it shall seem proper, pro- 

 vide for a gold medal of the value of one 

 hundred dollars, from time to time to the 

 person in any country who shall make any 

 astronomical discovery or produce any as- 

 tronomical work worthy of special reward 

 as contributing to our science." Five 

 medals have thus far been awarded, the 

 recipients being B. A. Gould, Edward 

 Schonfeld, Arthur Auwers, Seth C. Chand- 

 ler and Sir David Gill. 



4. The Henry Draper Fund. — In 1883 

 Mrs. Henry Draper, widow of Henry 

 Draper, late our honored member, pre- 

 sented to the academy a fund of $6,000 for 

 the establishment of a gold medal to be 

 awarded by the academy every two years 

 to the individual in this or any other coun- 

 try who makes the most important dis- 

 covery in astronomical physics. This fund 

 now amounts to $10,000, as, in accordance 

 with the wish of the donor, the income, 

 above what was required to provide the 

 Draper medals, was for a time allowed to 

 accumulate and was added to the principal 

 until this amounted to $10,000. At present 

 the excess of income is available for pur- 

 poses of research in the line of astronomical 

 physics. The Draper medallists named in 

 chronological order are S. P. Langley, E. 

 C. Pickering, H. A. Rowland, H. K. Vogel, 

 J. E. Keeler, Sir William Huggins, G. E. 

 Hale and C. G. Abbot. 



5. The J. Lawrence Smith Fund. — In 

 1884 Mrs. J. Lawrence Smith, widow of 

 one of our honored members, presented to 

 the academy the sum of $8,000, the object 

 of the gift being to promote the study of 

 meteoric bodies, a branch of science which 

 Dr. Smith had pursued with marked sue- 



