EZEKIEL BROWN ELLIOTT. 451 



Meanwhile he had continued his contributions to the meetings of 

 the American Association. In 1874, he presented, at the Hartford 

 meeting, a paper on the Future Population of the United States. In 

 1875, he presented to the Detroit meeting a paper on the Subsidiary 

 Principle applied to Coinage and Money of Account.* At the 

 Buffalo meeting of 1876, he presented a paper on the Relative 

 Market Prices of Gold and Silver, and their influence on the Metallic 

 Monetary Standard of the United States, accompanied by a diagram 

 showing for thirty-four years the relative values of gold and silver ; 

 also the mint ratios adopted by the government with regard to the 

 gold and silver coinage, and their successive changes. At the Nash- 

 ville meeting of 1877, he presented two papers, one on the Monetary 

 Standard, the other on Standard Time. The last-named subject had 

 strongly attracted Mr. Elliott's attention,! and he continued to work 

 in this line until the adoption of the principle throughout the United 

 States. 



In 1881, Congress passed an act creating the office of Government 

 Actuary ; and on the 1st of July Mr. Elliott was appointed to that 

 office, which he held during the remainder of his life. The reports 

 prepared by him, in this capacity, are too numerous and various to 

 be individually noticed. Among the questions presented to him for 

 investigation and discussion were the apportionment of representa- 

 tion in Congress under the Tenth Census ; the condition of the United 

 States Sinking Fund ; the probable population of the country, at suc- 

 cessive dates ; the interest borne by various species of United States 

 Government securities ; and the effect of innumerable schemes for re- 

 funding the debt of the United States. J The calls upon Mr. Elliott 

 as Government Actuary came from all the executive departments, 

 from the Smithsonian Institution, from both Houses of Congress, and 

 from many individual members and committees of Congress. 



From the date of his appointment as Government Actuary, his 



* In this year he wrote the article on Coinage in .Johnson's Cyclopedia. 



t In 1881, he joined with Professor Cleveland Abbe in forming a Universal 

 Time Table, and in a report on Standard Time, made to the Metrological 

 Society, of which he was an active member. 



I Senator Hawley relates an amusing incident concerning a scheme which 

 had passed the House, and was being verj' indulgently considered by the 

 Finance Committee of the Senate, when Mr. Elliott appeared before the Com- 

 mittee and in a few minutes showed conclusively that the measure, if adopted, 

 would cost the government in excess of thirty-three millions of dollars. The 

 bill was thereupon incontinently dropped, and no one could afterwards be 

 found who had ever been in favor of it. 



