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mass of the people of a country; and upor international 
determinations the convenience of all engaged, directly or 
indirectly, in commerce and kindred pursuits. 
In the report of the Secretary of the Treasury (Hon. 
S. P. Chase), in 1861, occurs the following sentence in 
regard to weights, measures and coins (page 22): “The 
Secretary desires to avail himself of this opportunity to 
invite the attention of Congress to the importance of a 
uniform system and a uniform nomenclature of weights, 
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 impossible. The com- 
bination of the decimal system with appropriate denomina- 
_tions in a scheme of weights, measures, and coins, for the 
international uses of commerce, leaving, if need be, the 
separate systems of 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 ser- 
vice of mankind.” 
This Committee, No. 1, was appointed as follows: Pro- 
fessor Joseph Henry, Chairman, Professor J. H. Alexander, 
Professor Fairman Rogers, Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, Professor 
A. Guyot, Professor B. Silliman, Jr., Professor William 
Chauvenet, Dr. John Torrey, Professor A. D. Bache (ap- 
pointed by resolution of Academy), Commodore John Rodg- 
ers, U.S. N., and L. M. Rutherfurd. 
It is not a little strange that in our country, where, not- 
withstanding the capital error committed in long retaining 
in use foreign coins which stood in no conyenient relation to 
the established system, the decimal system proved at once 
so acceptable, nothing of the kind was effected for weights 
and measures. It is still more strange that the antiquated 
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