208 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
ing made known this arrangement to the Academy on January 9, 
1864, the committee was continued, with power to act. Two 
years later, on January 27, 1866, the committee submitted its 
first definite report in the following terms: 
“Report of the Committee on Weights, Measures, and Coinage, to the 
National Academy of Sciences, January, 1866. 
“The Committee are in favor of adopting, ultimately, a decimal system; and, 
in their opinion, the metrical system of weights and measures, though not without 
defects, is, all things considered, the best in use. The Committee therefore suggest 
that the Academy recommend to Congress to authorize and encourage by law the 
introduction and use of the metrical system of weights and measures; and that 
with a view to familiarize the people with the system, the academy recommend 
that provision be made by law for the immediate manufacture and distribution to 
the custom-houses and States of metrical standards of weights and measures; to 
introduce the system into the post offices by making a single letter weigh fifteen 
grammes instead of fourteen and seventeen hundredths or half an ounce; and 
to cause the new cent and two-cent pieces to be so coined that they shall weigh, 
respectively, five and ten grammes, and that their diameters shall be made to 
bear a determinate and simple ratio to the metrical unit of length.” ® 
This report was considered by the Academy and was trans- 
mitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, Hugh McCulloch, 
with a letter, signed by Joseph Henry, Vice-President of the 
Academy, giving the views of the majority and minority on the 
general question under consideration. ‘This very interesting 
communication was as follows: ° 
“ SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D. C., 
“ February 17, 1866. 
“Sr: I have the honor herewith to transmit a report of the National Academy 
of Sciences on weights, measures, and coinage, adopted at its late meeting in 
January, after considerable discussion, but not with entire unanimity. 
“The subject is one of much perplexity. While, on the one hand, it is evident 
that a reform of our present system of weights and measures is exceedingly 
desirable, on the other, the difficulty of adopting the best system and of introducing 
it in opposition to the prejudice and usages of the people is also apparent. 
“The entire adoption of the French metrical system involved the necessity of 
discarding our present standard of weights and measures—the foot, the pound, 
the bushel, the gallon—and the introduction in their place of standards of 
unfamiliar magnitudes and names. 
°Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1865, p. 5. 
“Loch cit, p. 4: 
