1912.] 
NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 
545 
The following Reports were ordered to be printed: 
REPORT OF THE RECORDING SECRETARY. 
Because, probably, of the division of Science into specialties, 
it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain interest in the meetings 
of a society devoted, as the Academy is, to research in the entire 
field of physics and natural history. In the absence of solicited 
communications taking more or less the form of lectures, and all 
the more likely to secure a moderate audience if illustrated by lan¬ 
tern views which would be even more attractive could they be 
presented in the form of moving pictures, there seems no reason, 
beyond the requirements of routine business, generally irksome, 
for the holding of the sessions provided for by the by-laws. The 
practice of reporting in verbal communications the results of current 
original research has almost entirely ceased, although thirty or 
fort}’ years ago it was a most important means of sustaining the 
interest of the meetings, giving distinction to the minutes, and adding 
to the value of the publications. 
When Leidy, or Cassin, or Meehan, or Cope, or Ryder, or Heil- 
prin had found out anything, had a new fact or the confirmation 
of an old one to tell of, they resorted to the “verbal,” a substantive 
with cjuite a special significance as used in the Academy. These 
verbal communications were generally reported by the authors for 
the pages of the Proceedings. For some years back, to the impov¬ 
erishment of the meetings, such contributions to science are either 
embedded in a formal paper presented for publication and seldom or 
never read except by title, or they are made known to the world in 
little notes to Science or some other current periodical. 
The consideration of a possible remedy for the existing subsidence 
of interest in the meetings of the Academy has been referred to a 
committee, and it may be that the result will be beneficial. 
Thirteen meetings have been held since last November, with 
an average attendance of fifty-one—a much higher average than has 
been recently reported. This is, however, due to the extraordinary 
attendance on the sessions of the meeting held March 19, 20, and 
21, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the 
