the commanding generals of the armies or departments in which they are serving; but in order that no inconvenience to a the service shall result these requisitions shall be subject to the discretion of the commanding general as to the time and order in which the officers called for shall report, care being taken that the officers to be withdrawn shall be replaced in advance as far as practicable by others who have passed satisfactory examinations.

6. The boards instituted by section 3 will report in secession at the headquarters of the army, army corps, or departments in the districts to which they may be assigned, and will be subject to the discretion of the ce and place of meeting and the order in which candidates are to be examined.

7. Examining boards will be governed by the following rules:

First. Candidates for commissions shall be examined upon reading, writing, composition, and arithmetic; elementary chemistry and the elementary branches of natural philosophy, surveying, and topography, the use and management of field signals and field telegraphs; and those who have served in the acting corps, upon the mode of condicuting signal parties in the field and in the presence of the enemy, and upon rendering the proper papers and reports.

Second. Candidates for warrants shall be examined upon reading, writing, geography, and arithmetic.

Third. No person shall be recommended for appointment or enlistment in the Signal Corps who is not of good moral character and physically competent for the duties.

Fourth. The several examining boards will adopt such forms of proceeding in questions upon the different branches of education enumerated above, or employ such other methods of ascertaining the merits of the different candidates as may seem expedient, having due reference to their mental and physical qualifications.

8. The principal and auxiliary examining boards will make to the Secretary of War, through the signal officer, weekly reports of the examinations made by them, designating by name, regiment, age, nativity, &c., of the persons examined, the grade for which they are recommended, and their recent standing, as determined by the examination and by their record of service. In the case of the auxiliary boards directed by sections 3 and 4, these reports will be transmitted through the commanding generals of the army or department in which the examinations were made.

9. As soon as the examinations of the auxiliary boards have been completed, a revising board, constituted as directed in the first section, with the addition of the majors who were members of the boards direcd section, will assemble in this city for the purpose of reviewing the action of the several examining boards; determining the relative standing of the officers of each grade; the rules to be observed in the appointments to the grade of first and second lieutenants; the classification of enlisted men, and making such other recommendations as may have been suggested by observation and experience as essential to a perfect organization of the corps.

10. Until the reports of the revising board have been approved by the Secretary of War, the appointments in the Signal Corps will be limited to the colonel and the two majors, one captain, two first lieutenants, and four second lieutenants for each army cops or department in which signal parties have been or may be authorized, and the enlistments or transfers to one sergeant, two privates of the first crivates of the second class--the appointments thus made to be temporary, and the permanent standing of the officers to