FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. 59 



tion were very anxious that the intercourse, begun under such happy 

 auspices, should not be terminated with the close of the Congress, but 

 that it might be continued through the years to come. 



Turning now to the specific recommendation of the Congress, which 

 has already been set forth, the Congress felt that fixing and defining 

 frontier lines would not only be a useful and a necessary undertaking, 

 but that, in addition, it would contribute to the friendly relations be- 

 tween American countries, because, by the determination of frontier 

 lines, one of the causes of friction and misunderstanding between the 

 republics, which should be to each other as neighbors, would disappear, 

 and science would thus become a factor in American fraternity. Scientifi- 

 cally it would solve in part the problem of uniting the international nets, 

 without the inconvenience now encountered after the triangular system 

 of each country has been completed, and, in addition to this very great 

 service, the completion of the labor recommended by this article would 

 offer valuable elements for the study of great meridian arcs and parallels. 



In like manner, the second paragraph of the recommendation has a 

 value transcending its scientific importance, for the diffusion of knowl- 

 edge contributes to the friendship of Nations, and the study of geography 

 in all its branches and the unity of cartographic systems favor commer- 

 cial and industrial exchange. 



ARTICLE 5. The Second Pan American Scientific Congress recommends 



that- 

 Proper steps and measures be taken to bring about in the American 

 Republics a general use of the metric system of weights and 

 measures, in the press, magazines, newspapers, and periodicals, 

 in educational and scientific work, in the industries, in com- 

 merce, in transportation, and in all the activities of the dif- 

 ferent Governments. 



To the citizens of the Latin American Republics this article will seem 

 well-nigh meaningless, for in the -Western Hemisphere the English sys- 

 tem of weights and measures obtains only in the United States and the 

 English-speaking colonies, whereas the remaining American Republics 

 and the greater part of the Eastern Hemisphere use the metric system. 

 Measures and weights are, however, an important part of the vocabu- 

 lary in international relations. The English is not nearly so convenient 

 and simple as the metric system, either in commercial or scientific work. 

 The use of the English system in the United States is one of the 

 important obstacles, in the opinion of the American delegates, to a closer 



