Page:Annualreportofbo1906smitfo.djvu/27

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS.
XIX

REGULAR MEETING OF MARCH 6, 1906.

Present: Mr. Chief Justice Fuller (Chancellor) in the chair; the Vice-President, Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge; Senator A. O. Bacon; Representative Robert Adams, jr.; Representative W. M. Howard; Dr. Andrew D. White; Dr. A. Graham Bell, and the Acting Secretary, Mr. Richard Rathbun.

DEATH OF SECRETARY LANGLEY.

The Chancellor announced the death of Secretary Langley, at Aiken, South Carolina, on February 27, 1906, and designated the Vice-President and Senator Lodge as a committee to draft a suitable minute to be spread upon the records and to be transmitted to the family of Mr. Langley. The following resolution was subsequently adopted by a rising vote:

Resolved, That the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution express their profound sorrow at the death on February 27, 1006, of Samuel Pierpont Langley, Secretary of the Institution since 1887, and tender to the relatives of Mr. Langley their sincere sympathy in their bereavement;

That in the death of Mr. Langley this Institution has lost a distinguished, efficient and faithful executive officer, under whose administration the international influence of the parent Institution has been greatly increased, and by whose personal efforts two important branches of work have been added to its care—the National Zoological Park and the Astrophysical Observatory;

That the scientific world is indebted to Mr. Langley for the invention of important apparatus and instruments of precision, for numerous additions to knowledge, more especially for his epoch-making inventions in solar physics, and for his efforts in placing the important subject of aerial navigation upon a scientific basis;

That all who sought the truth and cultivated science, letters, and the fine arts, have lost through his death a coworker and a sympathizer;

That the executive committee be requested to arrange for a memorial meeting to be held in Washington;

That Dr. Andrew D. White be invited to prepare a suitable memorial which shall form a part of the records of this Board;

That the expenses of the funeral of Mr. Langley be provided for out of the income of the Institution.

APPOINTMENT OF REGENT.

The Chancellor announced the reappointment of Mr. Richard Olney as a Regent by joint resolution of Congress approved February 23, 1906.

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING.

The minutes of the annual meeting held January 24, 1906, were read in abstract and approved.