1879. | Recent Literature. 309 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE House oN CoINs, WEIGHTS 
AND Measures.—The late Congress has given the country abun- 
dant reasons for never wishing to see it again, but it remained for 
it to add as an appropriate headstone to mark its grave the above 
report. This committee was composed as follows: A. H. Stephens, 
Chairman; Levi Maish, Robt. B. Vance, J. B. Clark (Mo.), R. M. 
Ryan, J. W. Dwight, R. L. Gibson. To all appearance these 
gentlemen have embodied their views on the metrical system in a 
report of 234 pages. This report contains a collection of various 
works, reports, tables, &c., &c., from many sources, and in so far 
p. 6, that “ Phidon of Argos i Greece, nearly a thousand years be- 
fore the Christian era, gave the subject (?) his profound attention, 
but with no nearer approximation to what was wanting than any 
& 
” 
of his predecessors,” &c. 
” 
in a boy’s or girl’s collegiate course. oe : 
Passing over the loose and only partly intelligible style of this 
EN hae 
Statement, it is fair to presume that it grew out of “some writer's 
ill remembrance of the following paragraph on the back of one of 
the Metric Bureau “ Broadsides :” d: 
“The Hon. John Yates (an Englishman), after protracted inquiry 
and investigations in the schools and among those best able to 
