208 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



ing made known this arrangement to the Academy on January 9, 

 1864, the committee was continued, with power to act. Two 

 years later, on January 27, 1866, the committee submitted its 

 first definite report in the following terms: 



" Report of the Committee on Weights, Measures, and Coinage, to the 

 National Academy of Sciences, January, 1866. 



"The Committee are in favor of adopting, ultimately, a decimal system; and, 

 in their opinion, the metrical system of weights and measures, though not without 

 defects, is, all things considered, the best in use. The Committee therefore suggest 

 that the Academy recommend to Congress to authorize and encourage by law the 

 introduction and use of the metrical system of weights and measures; and that 

 with a view to familiarize the people with the system, the academy recommend 

 that provision be made by law for the immediate manufacture and distribution to 

 the custom-houses and States of metrical standards of weights and measures; to 

 introduce the system into the post offices by making a single letter weigh fifteen 

 grammes instead of fourteen and seventeen hundredths or half an ounce; and 

 to cause the new cent and two-cent pieces to be so coined that they shall weigh, 

 respectively, five and ten grammes, and that their diameters shall be made to 

 bear a determinate and simple ratio to the metrical unit of length." 5 



This report was considered by the Academy and was trans- 

 mitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, Hugh McCulloch, 

 with a letter, signed by Joseph Henry, Vice-President of the 

 Academy, giving the views of the majority and minority on the 

 general question under consideration. This very interesting 

 communication was as follows: 6 



" SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D. C., 



" February 17, 1866. 



" SIR : I have the honor herewith to transmit a report of the National Academy 

 of Sciences on weights, measures, and coinage, adopted at its late meeting in 

 January, after considerable discussion, but not with entire unanimity. 



" The subject is one of much perplexity. While, on the one hand, it is evident 

 that a reform of our present system of weights and measures is exceedingly- 

 desirable, on the other, the difficulty of adopting the best system and of introducing 

 it in opposition to the prejudice and usages of the people is also apparent. 



" The entire adoption of the French metrical system involved the necessity of 

 discarding our present standard of weights and measures the foot, the pound, 

 the bushel, the gallon and the introduction in their place of standards of 

 unfamiliar magnitudes and names. 



"Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1865, p. 5. 

 * Loc . cit., p. 4. 



