38 



ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SUIKNCH. 



listoric Village Sites in Ohio compared," by Warren 

 A Moorhead ; u Some Indian Fishing Stations upon 

 Long Island 1 ' and "The Discovery of riuimris 

 Temoatan of ir,.s.j," by William W. looker; "The 

 Salt of Savagery," by Frank II. rushing; "Sur- 

 vival <>f Karly Dwarf Kaees in the Ne\v World," by 



II G. Ilaliburton; " Tin- Meal Museum,' 1 by Thomas 

 Wilson; --Crania <>f tin- Necropolis of Ancon, Peru" 



iioniiil Year of the Maya Codex Cortesiana,? and u Ex- 



liibitionof an \bnri"-inal Mexican Manuscnptol Mag- 

 ui-v 1'apiT," by Marshall II. Savillc- ; "The Origin 

 of Numeral Words," by Levi L. Conant; "Notes on 



the Mummy Corn 'of Peru," b\ K. Lewis Sturtevant : 

 : Uem'arks upon an Attempt to interpret 1'lates 

 J5 and 40 of the Dresden Codex," by llilhorue T. 

 Creation; "Primitive Anthropometry and its Folk- 

 - Incorporation in the Kootenay Language," and 

 Translation into I'rimitive Languages; Errors and 

 Pitfalls; with Illustrations from Al-ronkiun Dialects," 

 i.y Alexander F. Chamberlain ; u Armor of the North 

 American Aborigines;' by Walter Hough; u Light 

 from Ke.'ent Science upon Man's Religious Belief," by 

 e V. Keiehel ; " Mexican Cooking and Mexican 

 9," by John (1. Bourke ; " New and Improved 

 Te>ts for 'the Determination of Visual Aeuteness in 

 Railway Employees," by Charles A. < >liver ; and " An 

 Illinois' Drift Implement," by J. F. Snyder. 



I. Economic Science and Statistics. The pre- 

 ,-iding officer of this section was Henry Farquhar, 

 of tlit' United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 Washington, D. C., who discussed the topic of 

 - A Stable Monetary Standard " for his address. 

 The essence of his remarks was as follows: ''A 

 monetary standard is constant when the same 

 amount, of money does the same work as nearly 

 as possible supplies the same want and compen- 

 sates the same effort. These ends should both 

 be attained if practicable ; if not, neither should 

 be exclusively preferred. The selection of cen- 

 turies of civilization having fixed upon silver 

 and gold as expressions of values to be taken as 

 con-taut, the inquiry is, which of the two more 

 nearly meets these ends, or whether a combina- 

 tion of the two would be better than either. The 

 answer appears to lie that by the ideally best 

 standard the prices of average merchandise ought 

 to have been slightly diminishing, and the wages 

 of labor to have been slightly increasing within 

 the last twenty years, a requirement more satis- 

 factorily met by gold ; and that any attempt to 

 work the two metals on equal terms into a com- 

 posite whole is of very doubtful practicability, 

 and of very doubt fill merit if its practicability 

 were assured. The alleged scarcity of gold seems 

 little more than a myth. The most important 

 conclusion suggested is the needlessness 01 active 

 int.erlVrencc in the matter by the governing pow- 

 er. Allowing entire freedom of contracts in 

 money; construing the terms of such contracts 

 in all doubtful eases according to prevalent 

 usage, and cnl'oreing them accordingly; grant- 

 ing to the people needed facilities for immediate 

 decision as to values in metallic form by marks 

 certifying to weight and lineness this being the 

 true function of coinage; when the government 

 hjfcS done these it hasdone its part. The usurped 

 power of passing ' legal-tender ' acts should be 

 surrendered, and legal definitions of value should 

 cover only contracts made, by the government 

 itself. Were this course followed men might 

 treat as money anything they agreed so to treat, 



accepting the government's stamp as evidence 

 that their agreement was kept, and not fearing 

 or hoping that any meddlesome enactment would 

 step in to declare that, though one metal was 

 agreed on, the agreement might be completely 

 discharged by paying 15i times its weight of 

 some other. If the result of this policy should 

 be that the economic forces now working to 

 bring all nations to a gold unit should prevail in 

 practical business, the standard to which we 

 should thus be brought, as amply shown above, 

 is no bad one. If the contracting parties pre- 

 ferred silver, however, they might make their 

 agreement in terms of silver and have it so en- 

 forced ; or if they decided on giving the debtor 

 an option to pay one metal or ' put ' another and 

 so declared, the law might help them in that also. 

 But it would not infer the ' put ' unless the con- 

 tract explicitly provided for it. The question of 

 the ideal standard would remain as now, inter- 

 esting and altogether suitable for scientific bod- 

 ies, but active business would never have occasion 

 to wait for our verdict upon it. 



" In a total abandonment by the government 

 of its power to declare a legal tender for private 

 debts is to be found the true practical solution 

 of this problem, a stable monetary standard." 



The following-named papers were then read 

 and discussed before the section : 



" A Forecast of the Future Commercial Union of the 

 English-speaking People " and " The Evil Effect of 

 ra'iMiiir Prices by depressing the Standard of Value," 

 by Edward Atkinson; "Has Gold appreciated or de- 

 preciated?" and "Kate of Interest in the United 

 States considered Geographically," by Henry Far- 

 quhar ; " The Teaching of Domestic Science in an Ag- 

 ricultural College," by Mrs. Nellie S. Kedzie ; " Lim- 

 its of Biological Experiments," by Manly Miles; " The 

 British Land Difficulty Poultry and Eggs," by James 

 V. R. Swann; "Weeds as related to Civilization," by 

 Byron D. Ilalsted ; " The Providential Function of 

 Government," by Bernhard E. Fernow ; " Coxey's 

 Army and the Russian Thistle," by Liberty II. Bai- 

 ley ; * " Radical Defects in Municipal Fire Depart- 

 ments," u Evolution of a Cooking School in Washing- 

 ton, D. C.," and " A Study in Social Economy," by 

 Laura O. Talbott ; "A New Plan for Proportional 

 Representation in Legislative Bodies," by William H. 

 Goodyear; " The Suffrage Question "and " Some Sug- 

 gestions as to Single Tax," by Stillman F. Kneeland ; 

 " The Science of Society," by James A. Skilton ; u A 

 Misleading Statement of Gresham's Law " and "Tests 

 of Stability in the Value of Money," by Edward T. 

 I'e.ters ; and " On Suicide," by W. 'Lane O'Neill. 



Popular Features of the Proceedings. 



Subsequent to the delivery of the presidential ad- 

 dress on the evening of Aug. 10. the usual recep- 

 tion to the association was given by the Ladies' 

 Reception Committee of Brooklyn in the Assem- 

 bly Rooms and Art Galleries adjacent to the 

 Academy of Music. On the evening of Aug. 17 

 a public lecture on " The Vikings, their Civili/a- 

 tion and Expeditions," complimentary to the 

 citizens of Brooklyn, was given by Paul Du 

 Chaillu. Saturday, Aug. 18, as usual, was de- 

 voted to excursions. A choice of two was given : 

 one to Long Branch, by boat down the bay and 

 the. Shrewsbury river to Pleasure Bay. thence by 

 stage, was complimentary to the members of the 

 association, and was presented by Mrs. Esther 

 Hermann, patron of the association, who received 

 the members at her summer home and grounds 

 at Long Branch, and all who took the excursion 



