FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. 6 1 



Pan American Scientific Congress, recommending as most desirable the 

 establishment of official meteorological and seismological services in 

 countries which have not yet established such agencies for the advance- 

 ment of knowledge of our planet and for direct aid to agriculture, trans- 

 portation, and sanitation. It is to be hoped that a recommendation urged 

 by two Scientific Congresses of the Americas will be carried into effect, 

 as it would not have been proposed in the first instance, had its advisa- 

 bility not been apparent, and it would not have been reaffirmed by the 

 present Congress unless it were considered, upon reflection, highly 

 desirable. For this reason the Congress, in making the recommendation, 

 expressed the hope that the services would be established where they 

 do not exist as soon as may be practicable. 



ARTICLE 7. The Second Pan American Scientific Congress recommends 



that 



There be appointed an international Pan American committee to 

 study and report upon the question of establishing such a 

 uniform railway gauge as will best serve the countries' inter- 

 est, their international communication, and the communica- 

 tion between all the countries of America. 



The place of communication in the economy of nations is so generally 

 recognized that it only need to be stated in order to be accepted. If the 

 republics of the American Continent are to be brought into close and 

 constant intercourse, with resultant friendship and mutual appreciation, 

 and if the commercial relations of the Americas are to become closer and 

 mutually more advantageous, as is the hope of partisans of Pan Ameri- 

 canism, every recommendation tending to facilitate communications 

 between and among the republics should indeed be welcome. 



The present article, which came to the Congress with the approval 

 and at the instance of the Section on Engineering, recognizes the necessity 

 of establishing a uniform railway gauge in order that the railways of all 

 countries might be uniform and therefore be of common use. Recogniz- 

 ing also the difficulties in the way of establishing the uniform gauge, the 

 Engineering Section advocated the appointment of a Pan American Com- 

 mittee, to study and to report upon the question, in the hope, if not the 

 expectation, that the investigation and report of such a committee would 

 tend to remove the obstacles that stand in the way and which have 

 hitherto stood in the way of the uniform railway gauge. The Congress 

 shared the views of the Section as to the importance of uniformity in this 

 method of transportation and recommended the appointment of the 



