AMERICAN  PHARMACEUTICAL  ASSOCIATION.  515 
The  two  last  questions  were  accepted  by  Dr.  E.  R.  Squibb. 
Owing  to  the  destruction  of  his  laboratory,  and  the  attendant 
circumstances  with  which  the  members  are  familiar,  Dr.  Squibb 
could  not  prepare  answers  to  these  questions ;  but  as  a  substi- 
tute for  them,  he  read  a  paper  on  the  "Mechanical  Preparations 
of  Mercury  with  a  mercurial  machine,"  which  he  illustrated, 
with  a  diagram.  This  paper  excited  considerable  interest,  from 
the  perfection  of  the  results  it  affords. 
At  9|  o'clock  the  Association  adjourned  to  9  o'clock  on 
Thursday  morning. 
Third  day — Morning  Session — Sept.  15th,  1859* 
The  President  called  the  meeting  to  order  about  9  o'clock, 
and  the  Minutes  of  yesterday  were  read  by  the  Secretary  and 
corrected. 
Mr.  Tufts,  of  Dover,  N.  H.,  announced  the  death  of  Mr.  S.  P. 
Peck,  late  of  Bennington,  Vermont,  formerly  a  Vice-President 
of  the  Association,  and  introduced  resolutions  appropriate  to 
the  occasion. 
The  Executive  Committee  reported  that  Bradford  Ritter,  of 
Philadelphia,  had  sent  in  his  resignation,  and  had  paid  his  dues 
and  returned  his  certificate  of  membership. 
On  motion  of  Samuel  S.  Garrigues,  the  resignation  of  Mr. 
Ritter  was  accepted. 
The  subject  of  "  Resignation"  coming  up,  a  resolution  was 
adopted  authorizing  the  Treasurer  to  accept  the  resignation  of 
any  member  upon  payment  of  dues  and  return  of  certificate, 
after  the  matter  had  been  discussed  by  Mr.  Colcord,  Dr.  Squibb, 
and  others. 
The  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Weights  and  Measures 
being  now  in  order,  Alfred  B.  Taylor,  Chairman,  read  the  Re- 
port. This  document  is  very  comprehensive  in  its  scope,  and 
is  written  with  much  ability.  It  discusses  the  relative  merit  of 
the  different  metrical  systems  that  have  been  proposed,  and 
especially  the  Decimal  System,  which  is  not  favorably  received. 
The  advantages  of  the  decimal  system  of  notation  for  calcu- 
lation is  admitted,  but  the  difficulty  attending  binary  divi- 
sion in  this  system  renders  it  very  inconvenient  in  practice. 
Mr.  Taylor,  whilst  acknowledging  the  impracticable  character 
