REPORT OF THE AUTUMN MEETING 
745 
and that a Committee on the Organization of the Scientific Resources of the 
Country for National Service was appointed by the Council as follows: G. E. 
Hale, chairman, Simon Flexner, E. G. Conkhn, R. A. Millikan, A. A. Noyes. 
This last Committee presented a detailed report recommending the organi- 
zation of the National Research Council. 
The Home Secretary also announced that a Committee on Nitrate Supply 
was appointed at the request of the Secretary of War to present to the War 
Department "a report containing such information as will aid the depart- 
ment, to the greatest degree which the Academy finds practicable, in reaching 
a conclusion as to the best method to be followed in the manufacture of nitric 
acid by a process not involving dependence upon a foreign source of supply, 
the report to take into consideration the legislation contained in Section 124 
of the National Defense Act approved June 3, 1916." The following men 
were appointed memibers of this Committee by the President of the Academy : 
Arthur A. Noyes, chairman, Leo H. Baekeland,* Gano Dunn, Charles H. 
Herty,* Warren K. Lewis,* Michael I. Pupin, Theodore W. Richards, Elihu 
Thomson, Willis R. Whitney.* Those against whose name an asterisk is 
placed were named by the President of the American Chemical Society. 
The President announced that he had forwarded a preliminary report on 
the National Research Council to the President of the United States. 
The following new members were presented to the Academy: M. T. Bogert, 
L. O. Howard, A. G. Mayer, Raymond Pearl. 
The Treasurer reported that notice had been received from the attorneys 
for Mr. W. W. Farnam, the executor of the estate of Othniel C. Marsh, that 
he had filed in the New Haven probate court a supplemental account as 
executor which showed a balance of interest due the Academy of $6,921,84. 
The resolution in regard to a section of engineering which was proposed 
by the Council and adopted at the Business Session of the Academy on April 
17, 1916, was presented, and it was voted that a copy of the resolution be 
sent to each member of the Academy. The resolution is as follows: 
Voted that a section of engineering be developed which shall include men who have 
made original contributions to the science or art of engineering; that to this end the present 
section of physics and engineering be designated the section of physics, and that the Council, 
under the authority granted by section 4, article 4, of the Constitution, nominate to the 
Academy, after inviting suggestions from the members of the Academy, two or three engi- 
neers each year until such time as it shall seem advisable to establish a separate section of 
engineering, any engineers elected as the result of such nominations being in the mean- 
time assigned to that one of the existing sections to which their work is most closely related. 
The following amendments to the Constitution reported from the Council 
and returned to the Academy from the Committee of the Whole with favor- 
able recommendation were considered: 
That article 3, section I, line 3, of the Constitution be amended by substituting the 
word "fourth" for "third" in the phrase specifying that the Annual meeting shall begin 
"on the third Monday in April." 
That the last sentence of section 5, article 4, of the Constitution be stricken out. 
