The Society owes nothing. There is due it from advertisers, $20; from eleven members, one year's dues each, $33; from T. W. Barally, S. E. Jarvis and R. C. Smith, two years' dues each, $12; from E. F. Bradt, Geo. M. Brown, F. H. Brown, R. J. Hill, Owen Morris and A. S. Van de Mark, three years' dues each, $54. Those more than two years in arrears for dues have been notified as required by the laws of the Society. No response has been received, and their membership should be annulled. F. HODGMAN, Treasurer.

The following is the Secretary's report:

SECRETARY'S ANNUAL REPORT.

CLIMAX, MICH., Sept. 17, 1902.

To the Board of Directors of the Michigan Engineering Society. I would respectfully report the following business transacted by me for the Society since the last report:

Immediately after the Grand Rapids Convention, the job of printing our annual report, the MICHIGAN ENGINEER, was let to the Review and Herald Publishing Co., of Battle Creek. By an unfortunate accident, the stenographer's report of the convention was destroyed and the Society was left without any report of the oral proceedings of the convention. The President, Secretary, and Director Skeels met and prepared as complete a report as was possible under the circumstances.

The ENGINEER was gotten out in good season. were printed.

2,100 copies

Several new exchanges have been added to our list this year, and some seem to have fallen out. We now have sixteen exchanges on our list, with two more in good prospect, which I expect to receive during the year.

The work of securing ads was, as usual, mainly done by the Secretary, but some assistance was received from A. C. Lane, Chas. Holmes, A. L. Holmes, H. E. Riggs and Geo. F. Bristol. Such assistance has usually come free. When special solicitors have been employed they have been paid a commission on their orders. Some of our members have done a good deal of work soliciting ads, with small returns. None of them have ever asked anything more than pay for the postage stamps they used, and

not many of them have asked that, but I suggest to you the question whether they ought not to be allowed a commission on all orders which they secure. Ballots for members were sent out the first Monday in March, and the result of the ballot announced in the ENGINEER. The applications for membership of H. R. Allen and C. A. Ensign were received too late for this year's ballot. They are herewith submitted for your action.

Letter ballots for officers for the ensuing year were sent out August 15. So many of them as have been returned are herewith submitted for canvassing.

Charles Palmer and Dorr Skeels have made application to withdraw from the Society. Their dues are paid in full, and they are entitled to have their applications granted. In view of Mr. Skeels' long, faithful and meritorious services to the Society during its entire existence, I would suggest that his name be presented to the Society for honorary membership.

In the Treasurer's report are given the names of those whose membership should be annulled for nonpayment of dues. There is another member whose case I submit for consideration, that of E. Nicholson, of Kalamazoo. In response to the annual statement of dues sent him, he replied that he was going to quit the Society and would not pay his dues. And he has not. What shall be done? It would seem as if the members of this Society ought to understand that it is a legal incorporation, with power to enforce its laws if it chooses to do so, and that it is as dishonorable for a member to attempt to slink out of the Society, leaving its bills to be paid by the remainder, as it is for a partner in a mercantile or any other corporation to attempt the same thing. There is an honorable way provided for withdrawal from the Society; and there is also a dishonorable one.

I submit herewith some correspondence relative to joining the Association of Engineering Societies. Through its system of exchanges, this Society is now to all practical intents and purposes a member of such an association. Herewith I give the comparative advantages of the two associations, taking that of the Associated Societies from their statement. In each item, the Association of Engineering Societies is given first:

Cost of publication to members, aside from dues, $3.00 a year; 50 cents to $1.00 for postage.

This does not include two societies with whom we expect to exchange this year, but not now settled.

In this connection, I would suggest that if we continue our present system of exchanges it will be necessary to collect more than fifty cents, as has been done for postage on them. That amount has already been expended this year, and there are half of our exchanges yet to be received. Would it be well to raise the annual dues one dollar, and drop the special assessment for postage? F. HODGMAN, Secretary.

On motion of E. W. Muenscher, it was voted to pay the Secretary $300 for the past year's services.

The Society then proceeded to nominate candidates for the several offices to be elected by letter ballot. For president, A. L. Holmes, of Grand Rapids, was nominated; for vice-president, Dorr Skeels, of Grand Rapids; for secretary-treasurer, F. Hodgman, of Climax.

Mr. J. J. Hubbell called attention to the desirability of having one director elected each year to hold office for three years, and desired to know if action could not be taken at this meeting to bring about the change. The question was referred to the Secretary for an answer.

MR. HODGMAN: "It can only be done by disincorporating the Society. This matter was fully looked up when the Society was incorporated under a special act of the legislature, and it was found that the State constitution did not permit it. As it now stands, we are an incorporated body, having all the rights, powers and liabilities of any incorporated business association. If the officers of the Society contract for the publication of the anuual report, there is a responsible body back of them bound to pay for it. If a member fails to pay his dues or assessments, the Society can collect it from him if he is worth it. We can only elect directors in the manner suggested by giving up our business standing, and the Society has not hitherto thought it worth while. In fact, during the sixteen years that we have been incorporated the present Secretary and Messrs. Davis and Skeels have been on the Board of Directors nearly all the time, and we have never had a complete change in its membership.

The nomination of candidates was resumed, and the following members named as candidates for directors: Geo. S. Pierson, of Kalamazoo; Prof. A. C. Lane, of Lansing; Prof. H. K. Ved

der, of Agricultural College; Prof. J. B. Davis, of Ann Arbor; E. W. Muenscher, of Manistee; and M. Walker, of Fenton. The several committees were revised and rearranged as follows:

No. 1. On the Relation of Sewerage and Water Supply to the Public Health: Geo. S. Pierson, Kalamazoo; H. E. Riggs, Toledo; Frank F. Rogers, Port Huron.

No. 2.- On Forestry: continued the same.

No. 3.-On Engineering Features of Municipal Work to Be Protected by Ordinance: W. W. Brigden, Battle Creek; W. J. Sherman, Toledo, Ohio; E. W. Muenscher, Manistee.

No. 4, on Roads and Paving, and No. 5, on Questions in Land Surveying, were continued.

No. 6, on Advertising, and No. 7, on the Press, were discontinued.

No. 8, on Topographical Survey of the State, was continued. Professor Lane of that committee stated that they had not succeeded in securing any appropriation from the state for that work. Some work in the vicinity of Ann Arbor had, however, been done in connection with the U. S. Geological Survey, and sheets of that work were promised in the near future. He also called attention to a topographic map of one of the western counties, which had only cost him a couple of hundred dollars. It was largely made from a lot of railroad levels.

MR. RIGGS: I want to say for the benefit of the members who may not appreciate the value of the work, that work is being done for the State of Ohio. There are already completed now in the neighborhood of our city of Toledo enough sheets to give us a continuous map of a hundred miles by forty, and we find it of the very greatest value, not only in railway location, but in all classes of engineering work. Something less than a year ago our office sent for one hundred copies of the sheets for immediate contingencies. They are sold at thirty cents each by the government, and they were sold by us at the same price. They are of value to every surveyor, and they are valuable in a hundred different ways. If the work could be done for the whole state, it would be of the very greatest value.

Professor Davis reminded the Society that a very excellent topographic map of Michigan had been made many years ago by Farmer.

MR. HODGMAN: I think topographical sheets by counties were published by the state geologist in Houghton's time. I have one of them of Calhoun County, which was given me by the late Dr. Manly Miles more than forty years ago.

MR. LANE: I move that the committee be authorized to make such selection as they see fit of localities in the state in which to have the first sheets made, and that the Society aid with their advice and suggestions. Carried.

On motion of Mr. Brigden, it was voted to have a committee on electric railways, and Messrs. Wm. G. Fargo, of Jackson; M. C. Taft, of Kalamazoo; W. W. Brigden, of Battle Creek; and Henry F. Bean, of Jackson, were elected to serve in that committee.

The Secretary announced the receipt of a letter from Mrs. Jennie Watkins Copeland, which was read and referred to a special committee, consisting of Dorr Skeels, F. Hodgman and J. B. Davis. After considering the matter, the committee made the following report, which was adopted by the Society, and the Secretary ordered to communicate the same to Mrs. Copeland:

COMMITTEE'S REPORT.

The Michigan Engineering Society learns by the following letter, and with deep regret, of the death of one of its honorary members, John J. Watkins, of Guthrie, Okla. :

AT HOME ON MY FATHER'S FARM, ONE-HALF MILE

F. Hodgman, Climax, Mich.

NORTH OF GUTHRIE, OKLA.,
Jan. 20, 1903.

DEAR SIR: I received a notice a few days since addressed to my father, of the annual convention of the Michigan Engineering Society, of which my father was an honorary member, I believe.

As there have several communications come to him of late from your Society, I have concluded that they were not cognizant of his death, which occurred Aug. 5, 1902. I thought at the time I sent you a notice of his death. My poor father has