COMMITTEES ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT 213 
Further action in regard to the metric system was taken by the 
Academy in 1879, besides that mentioned on the preceding pages. 
This was in the form of resolutions urging that instruction in 
the principles of the metric system be introduced into the schools 
and colleges, that laws be enacted by Congress requiring the use 
of metric weights in the domestic mail service, and that the 
weights of coins be expressed in grams and milligrams rather 
than in grains and fractions of grains. 
COMMITTEE ON PROTECTING THE BOTTOMS OF 
IRON VESSELS. 1863 
The second committee appointed during the Civil War had 
for its task the consideration of means for protecting the bottoms 
of iron ships from injury by salt water. It was appointed May 
9, 1863, at the request of the Navy Department, communicated 
by Admiral Davis May 8, 1863. This was a short-lived com- 
mittee. It made a brief report on January 9, 1864, and was dis- 
charged. 
The substance of the report was that, though many plans for 
protecting the hulls of iron ships had been devised, no one of 
them had proved sufficiently effective to justify the committee 
in recommending it for use in the Navy. 
It was suggested that experiments should be tried by the com- 
mittee of the Academy in case means were provided. No means 
being forthcoming, however, the investigations were never 
undertaken by the Academy, although the laboratory of the 
Smithsonian Institution was placed at its disposal. 
It may seem strange that the committee, which included 
among the members the Sillimans and Wolcott Gibbs, should 
have been unable to make any suggestions in the line of the 
inquiry with which it was concerned, but it appears that the com- 
position of paints, and the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of 
different mixtures against corrosion and the fouling of ships has 
only recently been the subject of scientific investigations. We 
learn from the writings of Naval Constructor Henry Williams 
that it has only been within the last five or ten years that the 
