SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 381 
not oftener than once in five years. The provisions of Dr. Walker’s 
foundation allow the Council to pay “the sum of $500 for such 
scientific investigation or discovery in natural history as they may 
think deserving thereof, provided such investigation or discovery shall 
have first been made known and published in the United States of 
America, and shall have been at the time of said award made known 
and published at least one year; if, in consequence of the extraor- 
dinary merit of any such investigation or discovery, the Council of 
the Society shall see fit, they may award therefor the sum of $1000.” 
The Grand Honorary Walker Prize was first awarded in 1873 to 
Dr. Alexander Agassiz for his investigations in the embryology, 
geographical distribution, and natural history of the echinoderms. 
Since this first award in 1873, the Grand Honorary Walker Prize has 
been given to Professors Joseph Leidy, James Hall, and James D. 
Dana. In all cases the maximum amount, $1000, has been given, 
Papers read at the April meeting, 1898, of the National Academy 
of Sciences : The Coral Reefs of Fiji, A. Agassiz. The Fiji Bololo, 
A. Agassiz and W. McM. Woodworth. The Acalephs of Fiji, A. 
Agassiz and A. G. Mayer. ‘The Variation in Virulence of the Colon 
Bacillus, J. S. Billings. Biographical Memoir of Edward D. Cope, 
Theodore Gill. New Classification of Nautiloidea, Alpheus Hyatt. 
A New Spectroscope, A. A. Michelson. On the Hydrolysis of Acid 
Amides, Ira Remsen and E. E. Reid. The Question of the Existence 
of Active Oxygen, Ira Remsen and W. A. Jones. On the Product 
formed by the Action of Benzenesulphonchloride on Urea, Ira 
Remsen and J. W. Lawson. On Double Halides containing Organic 
Bases, Ira Remsen. McCrady’s Gymnophthalmata of Charleston 
Harbor, W. K. Brooks. Ballistic Galvanometry with a Counter- 
twisted Torsion System, Carl Barus. A Consideration of the Condi- 
tions governing Apparatus for Astronomical Photography, Charles 
S. Hastings, The Use of Graphic Methods in Questions of Disputed 
Authorship, with an Application to the Shakespeare-Bacon Contro- 
versy, T. C. Mendenhall. A Method for obtaining a Photographic 
Record of Absorption Spectra, A. W. Wright. Theories of Latitude 
Variation, H. J. Benedict, introduced by A. Hall. Progress in the 
New Theory of the Moon’s Motion, E. W. Brown, introduced by 
S. Newcomb. On the Variation of Latitude and the Aberration- 
Constant, Charles L. Doolittle, introduced by S. S. Chandler. A 
Curious Inversion in the Wave Mechanism of the Electromagnetic 
Theory of Light, Carl Barus. 
