304 
REPORT OF THE ANNUAL MEETING 
The total expense incurred in connection with the Proceedings during the year 1915, 
representing approximately the cost of publication of the first volume, is shown by the 
report of the treasurer to be $4300.67. Of this sum $2977.37 was expended for printing and 
distributing, corresponding to a cost of $4.65 per page. 
The Board recommends that action be taken by the Academy informing members and 
others presenting accounts of new researches at the Academy meetings that they are expected 
to furnish to the Home Secretary at the time of the meeting a brief paper describing these 
researches in form suitable for publication in the Proceedings. The Board also suggests 
that, in order to secure fuller circulation of the Proceedings in our universities, colleges, and 
research laboratories members of the Academy be requested to see that their own institutions 
subscribe to the Proceedings in case they have not already done so. 
GENERAL BUSINESS 
A report of the Committee on Bill H. R. 528, discontinuing the use of the 
Fahrenheit thermometer scale in government publications was adopted as 
follows: 
Your committee for the consideration of Bill H. R. 528, consisting of Messrs. C. G. Abbot, 
S. W. Stratton and C. M. Marvin, unanimously reports the following resolution, and moves 
its adoption. 
The National Academy of Sciences shares the desire of scientific men in general for inter- 
national and world-wide uniformity in units of measurement of all kinds, and with this object 
in view it favors the introduction of the Centigrade scale of temperature, and units of the 
metric system generally, as standards in the publications of the United States Government. 
It must be recognized that considerable initial expense must be incurred by the U. S. 
Weather Bureau in changing its apparatus to conform to the proposed act. Furthermore, 
on account of the more open scale of the Centigrade system that Bureau will be subject to a 
continued increased cost of pubUcation, owing to the necessity of printing the first decimal 
place in order to maintain the present accuracy. The use of negative temperatures and minus 
signs entails greater liability to errors, and more clerical labor would be required in checking 
the accuracy of the reports of cooperative observers of the Weather Bureau, and in computing 
monthly and other mean temperatures. 
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Academy is in favor of legislation to make the Centi- 
grade scale of temperatures the standard in publications of the United States Government, 
and funds should be made available by Congress to accomplish the desired result. 
The Academy favors Bill H. R. 528, "To discontinue the use of the Fahrenheit Thermom- 
eter Scale in Government Publications," but recommends that it be amended by the addi- 
tion of the following: 
" Sec. 4. When in the publication of tables containing several meteorological and cHmatic 
elements, the use of data in Centigrade temperatures leads to manifest incongruities, the Chief 
of the Weather Bureau is directed to publish related data in such units as are necessary to 
make the tables homogeneous and to secure international uniformity as far as practicable. 
"Sec. 5. Nothing in this act shall prevent the use of the absolute Centigrade scale of 
temperature in publications of the Government." 
Upon recommendation of the Council it was voted that in accordance with 
the request of the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House 
of Representatives a committee of the Academy be appointed to prepare a 
report upon the joint Resolution (H. J. Res. 99), ''That the President be, and 
he is hereby, requested to ascertain the views of foreign governments regard- 
