Febeuaby 6, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



199 



one hvmdred dollars in gold, has been 

 awarded to Gould, Schonfeld, Auwers, 

 Chandler, Gill and Kapteyn for their as- 

 tronomical investigations. 



In view of its national charter, the high 

 plane of its membership, and its special 

 advantages as the representative of the 

 United States in the International Associa- 

 tion of Academies, the National Academy- 

 is most favorably qualified for the custody 

 and efScient use of trust funds. Apprecia- 

 tion of this fact, amply indicated by the 

 above list of gifts and bequests, should 

 grow with the reputation of the Academy. 

 It is safe to predict that the privilege of 

 securing the Academy's aid in the control 

 and disbursement of large sums for the 

 benefit of science will be widely sought in 

 the future. In this connection attention 

 should be called to the present lack of 

 medals and funds especially devoted to 

 the recognition and aid of researches in 

 mathematics, engineering, geology and va- 

 rious departments of biology and anthro- 

 pology. 



COOPEEATION IN RESEARCH 



As an agent for the furtherance of co- 

 operative research, the National Academy 

 occupies a unique position among Ameri- 

 can societies. In these days of far-reach- 

 ing investigations, involving the common 

 action of men of science distributed 

 throughout the world, the great majority 

 of cooperative projects are international 

 in character. Here the peculiar advantage 

 of the Academy appears. The Interna- 

 tional Association of Academies is made 

 up of the national academies of sixteen 

 countries. Each academy is pledged to 

 support only such cooperative undertak- 

 ings as are endorsed by the association. 

 Thus the constituent members of this body, 

 through their delegates at its triennial 

 meetings, are most favorably placed for 



the initiation and furtherance of such in- 

 ternational movements. 



As an illustration of the work already 

 undertaken by the National Academy in 

 this field, mention may be made of the 

 International Union for Cooperation in 

 Solar Kesearch. In 1904, the Academy, 

 through its Committee on Solar Eeseareh, 

 invited various academies, physical and 

 astronomical societies, and other organiza- 

 tions interested in the subject, to send dele- 

 gates to a conference, with a view to the 

 initiation of international cooperation in 

 this field. Meetings have since been held 

 at Oxford in 1905, Paris in 1907, Mount 

 Wilson in 1910 and Bonn in 1913. The 

 constituent societies, each of which is rep- 

 resented in the Union by a standing com- 

 mittee, are as follows: 



The Royal Society of London, the Acad- 

 emies of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, 

 Paris, St. Petersburg, Stockholm and 

 Vienna, the Swiss Society of Natural Sci- 

 ences, the Astronomical Societies of Lon- 

 don, America, France and Canada, the 

 Physical Societies of Berlin, Italy, Spain, 

 France and America, the Society of Italian 

 Spectroseopists, the Solar Physics Com- 

 mittee, the Solar Sub-committee of the In- 

 ternational Meteorological Committee and 

 the National Academy of Sciences. 



The standards of wave-lengths which are 

 being established by the Union, as the re- 

 sult of extensive cooperative studies, will 

 be used universally by spectroseopists. In- 

 ternational committees, appointed by the 

 Solar Union, are studying the solar rota- 

 tion, the spectra of sun-spots and the in- 

 tensity of the solar radiation, on a com- 

 mon plan. Spectroheliographs are also in 

 use, for the almost continuous photography 

 of the sun, at the observatories of Kodai- 

 kanal, India; Catania, Sicily; Potsdam, 

 Germany ; Meudon, France ; Tortosa, 

 Spain; Cambridge, England; Williams 



