206 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



COMMITTEE ON WEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND COINAGE. 1863 



Five committees were appointed at the request of the Govern- 

 ment within a month after the organization of the Academy. 

 The first of these, which was known as Committee No. i, was 

 appointed at the solicitation of the Secretary of the Treasury, 

 Salmon P. Chase, on May 4, 1863, not to consider any question 

 relating to the conduct of the Civil War, but on the subject of the 

 " Uniformity of weights, measures and coins, considered in rela- 

 tion to domestic and international commerce." Secretary Chase 

 had previously referred to this matter in his annual report for 

 1861, p. 28, as follows: 



" The Secretary desires to avail himself of this opportunity to invite the atten- 

 tion of Congress to the importance of a uniform system and a uniform nomencla- 

 ture of weights and measures, and coins to the commerce of the world, in which 

 the United States already so largely shares. The wisest of our statesmen have 

 regarded the attainment of this end, so desirable in itself, as by no means impos- 

 sible. The combination of the decimal system with appropriate denominations in a 

 scheme of weights, measures, and coins for the international uses of commerce, 

 leaving, ff need be, the separate systems of the nations untouched, is certainly not 

 beyond the reach of the daring genius and patient endeavor which gave the 

 steam engine and the telegraph to the service of mankind." 2 



The committee was originally one of eight members, namely, 

 Joseph Henry (chairman), J. H. Alexander, Fairman Rogers 

 Wolcott Gibbs, Arnold Guyot, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Wm. 

 Chauvenet, John Torrey. To these members were added A. D. 

 Bache, by resolution of the Academy, John Rodgers, L. M. 

 Rutherfurd and Samuel B. Ruggles. Ruggles was not a member 

 of the Academy, but was designated in accordance with a pro- 

 vision of the constitution which permitted the President " to call 

 in the aid, upon committees, of experts, or men of remarkable 

 attainments, not members of the Academy." (Act 2, sect. 4.) 

 He was the delegate of the United States to the International 

 Statistical Congress held in Berlin in 1863. 



The original committee was discharged in 1866, but the 

 following year another committee was appointed under the same 



3 Rep. Seer. Treas. for 1861, p. 28. 



