486 REPORT—1868. 
ard, with a small tablet, explaining in few words the principles of the Metric 
System, and the table of all Metric Weights and Measures, is well calculated 
to enlighten the public mind on the subject. 
With the prospect that at an early period the use of the Metric System will 
be rendered compulsory, your Committee consider it of the highest importance 
to diffuse the knowledge of the same in schools and colleges, and among 
members of Literary and Mechanic Institutions throughout the country. One 
of the first steps taken by your Committee when they were first appointed, 
was to offer a small prize for the best school-book on the Metric System, 
and also to wait on the President of the Committee of Council on Education 
for the purpose of suggesting the introduction of the Metric System into the 
examination of teachers in training schools. These two objects have again 
been under consideration; and with a view to encourage the teaching of the 
Metric System, your Committee have, by the instrumentality of the Society 
for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture, and Commerce, offered three 
prizes of £5, £3, and £2 to such candidates who at their annual examination 
shall exhibit the greatest proficiency in the Metric System. A similar 
arrangement has also been concluded with the Committee of the British and 
Foreign School Society, which is connected with upwards of one thousand 
schools throughout England ; and your Committee have with pleasure offered 
two prizes of £5 each, to be awarded to such Students in their Training Col- 
leges, who shall show the most perfect acquaintance with the Metric System. 
And your Committee would consider it of great advantage to offer the same 
encouragement to the schools connected with the National Society, and the 
Home and Colonial School Society. The prize for the production of an ele- 
mentary school-book conveying the most requisite information in the most 
attractive form has again been advertised. 
It having come to the knowledge of the Committee that the Royal Society 
is now sending Dr. Carpenter and Professor Wyville Thompson in Her 
Majesty’s Steamship ‘ Lightning,’ under Lieutenant May, to dredge in the 
North Atlantic, and that a log and a sounding machine had been recently 
constructed by Messrs. Walker and Son of Birmingham, to measure in Metres, 
Kilometres, and Myriametres, your Committee have presented these two 
instruments to Dr. Carpenter as part of the equipment for the voyage; Dr. 
Carpenter agreeing to communicate the results in the terms of the Metric 
System. 
ThtHtodll the Metric System is making constant progress. During this year 
it has been adopted in North Germany, and Austria is preparing to follow in 
the same course. With reference to the measurement of tonnage, your Com- 
mittee have learnt, that the Chancellor of the North German Confederation 
having moved the Federal Council that the presiding power should be autho- 
rized to open negotiations with Great Britain, and subsequently with other 
maritime powers, including the United States of America, for establishing an 
international system of ship measurement on the basis of the English system, 
the Federal Council resolved that the proposed system should be based upon 
the metrical principle instead of the English tonnage. In Spain the Metrie 
System of Weights and Measures has been rendered compulsory from the 1st 
July, 1868. In the United States of America considerable progress has been 
made. A circular letter, signed by great numbers of schoolmasters and other 
teachers, advises that all books of arithmetic should contain the system. 
And the last meeting of the International Statistical Congress held at Flo- 
rence, unanimously resolved as follows :—“ The Congress of Florence, in ac- 
cordance with the opinion emitted by all the previous Statistical Congresses, 
