19 



extension to the entire Weight and Measure System, both here and in 

 Great Britain, highly desirable; but such extension is not contem- 

 plated in the present prayer of your Memorialists, which limits itself 

 to what is easily practicable and is in the direct line of farther im- 

 provement. 



In view of what has been said, then, and of the great convenience 

 that citizens of the two countries will find when the coins of each 

 pass in the other with the same facility as ours now do, between the 

 different and distant States of this Union ;— of the great economy of 

 time and labour that Commerce will experience in thus getting rid of 

 tedious calculations of conversions and exchanges, — and of the great, 

 though silent and unpretending help that will be given to the civiliza- 

 tion of the human race in this concession to uniformity by two great 

 nations whose common language is already spoken over half the 

 globe: — Your Memorialists respectfully pray that your Honourable 

 Bodies will give to this subject a wise and favourable consideration; — 

 and by joint resolution, or otherwise, will authorize the President of 

 the United States to enter into such correspondence with the Govern- 

 ment of Great Britain as may secure, in a reasonable time, a proper 

 uniformity of Coinage, in the mode that may be found most discreet 

 and convenient. 



And your Memorialists will ever pray, &c. 



Stated Meeting, March 17. 

 Dr. Franklin Bache, President, in the Chair. 



Present, fourteen members. 



Letters were read: — 



From James Paget, dated 24 Henrietta Street, Cavendish 

 Square, London, Feb. 15, 1854, acknov^^ledging the receipt of 

 notice of his election as a member of the Society : and — 



From the Royal Academy of Sciences at Amsterdam, dated 

 Nov. 2, 1853, returning thanks for Vol. X. Part 2, of the 

 Transactions, and for No. 48 of the Proceedings of this Soci- 

 ety. 



