REPORT OP THE SECRETARY GENERAL. 87 



represent one of the most valuable efforts to increase and harmonize the 

 common patrimony of mankind. I^et these congresses be welcomed, 

 because they lay out the direction of scientific courses and accelerate 

 progress in the most fruitful field of the practical application of science 

 in our hemisphere. 



With these ideas and sentiments the Government of Uruguay, desirous 

 of cooperating with that of the United States and with the others of 

 America in the success of this Congress, has stimulated the activity of 

 men of learning and science in my country, and has also sent delegates 

 to this congress. 



With those same ideas and sentiments our delegates, and I also, join 

 in your work, confident that we are taking part in one of the epoch- 

 making congresses in the annals of America. 



VENEZUELA: HIS EXCELLENCY SANTOS A. DOMfNICI, 

 ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER PLENIPOTEN- 

 TIARY. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: Venezuela has accepted with genuine pleasure 

 the invitation of the Government of the United States to attend this 

 gathering of the men of the Americas who are devoted to science. Fol- 

 lowing the Pan American Financial Conference, the meeting of the Second 

 Pan American Scientific Congress in this beautiful Capital is a happy 

 coincidence in which the governments and peoples of I^atin America have 

 a cause for mutual congratulation as an auspicious omen favorable to the 

 lofty purpose which brings them here. And this purpose is no other 

 than to make of these meetings the fount and head of the current of 

 cordiality, mutual appreciation and community of interests which will 

 some day make the union of the Republics of this hemisphere, the dream 

 of our several liberators, a wonderful reality. 



The congress that meets to-day for the first time is a happy sequence 

 to the financial conference, because they both represent the two main 

 currents which must be fed to make such union effective, that is, on the 

 one hand the current of the mind which runs through the golden threads of 

 thought and art, and on the other that of material needs which flows 

 through the channels of trade and industry. Both these currents have 

 always run simultaneously and inseparably, on parallel lines, the one 

 above the other. 



Furthermore, in meeting here to-day, before the altar of Minerva, in 

 these sad days when the nations that have always been the masters of 

 philosophy have forsaken the temples of that goddess to engage in a 

 struggle, the cause of which philosophy itself considers to be abhorrent, 



