these companies amounted to $80,000,000. At the beginning of the present century the domestic consumption of corn syrup and corn sugar amounted to 1200 million pounds annually. The exports for the decade 1893-1903 amounted to more than 1700 million pounds, valued at $28,000,000.

The report of the committee was one of the most extensive made during the first half century of the Academy and covered 77 printed pages. It contained, besides a general introduction, a summary of the history of the starch-sugar industry, an account of the several varieties of glucose and starch-sugar, and of their chemical composition, an inquiry into the healthfulness of glucose as a food, analyses of commercial samples of glucose and starch-sugar with special reference to adulteration, and a list of factories. To this were added fourteen pages of extracts from literature relating to starch-sugar, a bibliography covering 28 pages, and a list of patents.

The results of the work of the committee are summarized in eight paragraphs referring to the following subjects: The history of starch-sugar, the process of manufacture, the extent of the industry, the utilization of the products, the relation of starch-sugar to other sugars, the organic constitutents, the healthfulness of glucose as a food.

The conclusions were as follows:

"In conclusion, then, the following facts appear as the result of the present investigation: 1st. That the manufacture of sugar from starch is a long-established industry, scientifically valuable and commercially important. 2d. That the processes which it employs at the present time are unobjectionable in their character, and leave the product uncontaminated. 3d. That the starch sugar thus made and sent into commerce is of exceptional purity and uniformity of composition, and contains no injurious substances. And, 4th, that though having at best only about three-fifths the sweetening power of cane sugar, yet starch sugar is in no way inferior to cane sugar in healthfulness, there being no evidence before the committee that maize starch sugar, either in its normal condition or fermented, has any deleterious effect upon the system, even when taken in large quantities.'

135

" 135

Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1883, p. 88.

COMMITTEE ON THE SIGNAL SERVICE OF THE ARMY, THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, THE COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY, AND THE HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. 1884

In the Sundry Civil Act approved July 7, 1884, Congress directed the appointment of a joint commission of the Senate and House to consider and report on the organization of the Signal Service of the Army, the Geological Survey, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department "with the view to secure greater efficiency and economy of administration of the public service in said bureaus." It would appear that the demand for this inquiry had a double origin. In Congress and in the country generally it was thought that the weather service, which was organized under the Signal Service of the Army, would be improved and extended if it were taken out from under the control of the War Department and placed in charge of civilians. A separate inquiry into this matter was at first proposed, but subsequently it was merged with an inquiry into the relationships of the several national surveys. Regarding the latter the Joint Commission remarked in its report:

"It has been frequently stated in the course of debates in Congress that the several scientific Bureaus named were engaged in unnecessary work, so far as practical results were concerned, and also that there was a duplication of work, two or more Bureaus being engaged in substantially the same character of investigation and in the execution of the same work. It was claimed, especially, that the Geological Survey and the Coast and Geodetic Survey were duplicating their work; and it was also claimed that the work of the Coast Survey proper could be more economically performed under the direction of the Navy Department by use of the force and the organization in that Department known as the Hydrographic Office, and that that work should be transferred from the Treasury to the Navy.'

136

As originally organized, the Joint Commission consisted of Senators Wm. B. Allison (chairman), Eugene Hale, and Geo. H. Pendleton, and Representatives Robert Lowry, Hilary A. Herbert and Theodore Lyman (secretary). The Commission 136 House Reports, 49th Congress, 1st Session, Rep. no. 2740, pp. 1-2.

was unable to report in December, 1884, as the law demanded, and the time was extended to December, 1885, " or as soon thereafter as may be." In the meanwhile Senator Pendleton and Representative Lyman had retired from Congress, and were replaced on the Commission by Senator John T. Morgan and Representative John T. Wait. The report was finally submitted on June 10, 1886.187 The testimony taken before the Commission had already been published. It forms a thick volume of more than a thousand pages.138

Feeling that it should receive the advice of the National Academy of Sciences, the Commission, through its secretary, Hon. Theodore Lyman, requested that a committee of the Academy be appointed to consider the subject in question. The committee appointed by President Marsh consisted of M. C. Meigs, Wm. H. Brewer, Cyrus B. Comstock, S. P. Langley, Simon Newcomb, E. C. Pickering, W. P. Trowbridge, F. A. Walker, and C. A. Young. All accepted appointment, but subsequently Prof. Newcomb and Gen. Comstock resigned by order of the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of War, respectively. These orders were issued on the ground that it was not proper for the two members who were active officers of the Departments mentioned to be concerned in giving advice to Congress, which might result in action which would embarrass the heads of those Departments in carrying out their policies.139

On the other hand, President Marsh held that the Academy should not be deprived of the services of the two members in formulating advice asked for by the legislative branch of the Government. He declined, therefore, to accept their resignations, and laid the matter before the Academy. The Academy appears, however, to have taken no action regarding it.

137 House Rep. no. 2740, 49th Congress, 1st Session.

138 Senate Misc. Doc. no. 82, 49th Congress, 1st Session, 1886.

139

'This view did not affect the appointment of General Meigs, apparently for the reason that he was a retired officer. He was requested by the Secretary of War to withdraw, but upon his submitting a protest the matter was dropped.

The questions which the committee was requested to consider were as follows:

"

First. What is the organization of the government surveys, and of the signal service, in the chief countries of Europe, and could any part of this organization be advantageously adopted in this country?

Secondly. In what way can the scientific branches above referred to be best co-ordinated?

"

Thirdly. What changes in, or additions to, these branches are desirable?" 140 The report of the committee was submitted on September 24, 1884, and with the appendices, covers 30 pages. To the first inquiry propounded by the Joint Commission the committee replied that in its opinion the efficiency of the surveys of the United States would not be increased by adopting any form of organization existing in Europe, but that a more extended use of photography and zincography might prove economical in the production of maps and charts. It then called attention to a previous recommendation of the Academy that the Coast Survey be transferred to the Department of the Interior and that its work be extended to include topographic land surveys. The committee recommended that the Weather Bureau be separated from the Signal Service of the War Department and placed under the control of a scientific commission. No immediate change in the scope of the Hydrographic Office was recommended, but it was suggested that when the original survey of the coast should be finished, the work of re-sounding, re-examining, etc., might perhaps be advantageously committed to the Navy Department. Having given attention to these particulars, the committee then pronounced its conviction that a proper coördination of the scientific work of the Government would be most satisfactorily effected by the establishment of a Department of Science. It was proposed that this Department should include the Coast and Geodetic Survey under the name of the Coast and Interior Survey; the Geological Survey, unchanged; a Meteorological Bureau, to which should be transferred the main portion of the meteorological work of the Signal Service; and a physical 140 Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1884, p. 35.

observatory, "to investigate the laws of solar and terrestrial radiation and their application to meteorology, with such other investigations in exact science as the Government might assign to it." Attention was also called to the desirability of having in this department a bureau of standards, which might include the Bureau of Weights and Measures.

Should Congress consider it inadvisable to establish a new Department of Science, the committee suggested that all the scientific bureaus be assembled under some one of the Departments then existing. In case either action was taken, the Committee recommended that a permanent scientific commission be created to direct the policy of the several bureaus, this commission to consist of the Secretary of the Department of Science, or other Department to which the bureaus should be assigned (who should be president ex officio), the President of the National Academy of Sciences, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, "two civilians of high scientific reputation," an officer of the Engineer Corps of the Army, a professor of mathematics in the Navy, the Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Director of the Geological Survey, the head of the meteorological bureau.

This report was sent to the Government Commission on October 16, 1884, together with certain letters of the heads of the several scientific bureaus concerned.

The more comprehensive recommendations of the committee of the Academy have not been adopted by Congress up to the present time. Neither a Department of Science nor a general scientific commission has been established, but several of the changes proposed have been made. The meteorological service, formerly combined with the Signal Service of the Army, has become a separate bureau under the Department of Agriculture.141 A Bureau of Standards has been established in the Department of Commerce and Labor to which has been transferred the work of the former Bureau of Weights and Measures.

141 The Department of Agriculture became an executive department on February 9, 1889, and the Weather Service was transferred to it on October 1, 1890.