It is very evident, that if the several terms denoting weight, and also those which stand for the different measures of length, of surface, capacity, time, &c., were so contrived that each higher denomination should be just ten times the next lower, we might save ourselves all the trouble and perplexity of compound arithmetic. Mercantile questions of every description would be readily solved by the simple rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

It may be further added, that the advantages which would result to any one nation in particular, from such a reform, would be greatly increased, if several nations, connected by commerce and letters, could be persuaded to adopt the same system.

It would seem now an easy matter to devise a system embracing the foregoing advantages, and to give it the authority of a law. This has in fact been done, and one leading object of the report before us is, to furnish a statement of the proceedings in foreign countries relative to this subject.

The learned author first makes us acquainted with the English system in its origin, and the changes it has undergone. This it seems has descended to us from the remotest times. It has grown up with man and human society. It has accommodated itself in a greater or less degree to our wants, both physical and intellectual. It has advantages, derived from its long establishment, from the manner in which it has been formed, and from its being combined with so many of our arts and trades, that would be an overbalance to many theoretical excellencies. But it has also many acknowledged defects, some that are inherent in its original structure, and others that have been superadded to it, by the inconsistency of human laws. The changes, however, that have taken place in latter times seem to have been incidental, and not from designed innovation. The government appears to have interfered only to announce and fix the system that had been adopted to a greater or less extent by common consent, and had been in use time out of mind. Of this import is the statute of 1266, (51 Henry III,) which, after re-enacting certain ordinances of long standing relating to the assize of bread, ale, &c.

'Declares, that, "by the consent of the whole realm of England, the measure of the king was made; that is to say, that an English penny, called a sterling round, and without any clipping, shall weigh thirty-two wheat corns in the midst of the ear, and twenty

pence do make an ounce, and twelve ounces one pound, and eight pound do make a gallon of wine, and eight gallons of wine do make a London bushel, which is the eighth part of a quarter."

Henry the Third was the eighth king of the Norman race: and this statute was passed exactly two hundred years after the conquest. It is merely an exemplification, word for word, embracing several ordinances of his progenitors, kings of England; and it unfolds a system of uniformity for weights, coins, and measures of capacity, very ingeniously imagined, and skilfully combined.

It shows, first, that the money weight was identical with the silver coins and it establishes an uniformity of proportion* between the money weight and the merchant's weight, exactly corresponding to that between the measure of wine and the measure of grain.

It makes wheat and silver money, the two weights of the balance, the natural tests and standards of each other; that is, it makes wheat the standard for the weight of silver money, and silver money the standard for the weight of wheat.

it combines an uniformity of proportion between the weight and the measure of wheat and of wine; so that the measure of wheat should at the same time be a certain weight of wheat and the measure of wine at the same time a certain weight of wine, so that the article whether bought and sold by weight or measure, the result was the same. To this, with regard to wheat, it gave the further advantage of an abridged process for buying or selling it by the number of its kernels. Under this system, wheat was bought and sold by a combination of every property of its nature, with reference to quantity; that is, by number, weight, and measure. The statute also fixed its proportional weight and value, with reference to the weight and value of the silver coin for which it was to be exchanged in trade. If, as the most eminent of the modern economists maintain, the value of every thing in trade is regulated by the proportional value of money and of wheat, then the system of weights and measures, contained in this statute, is not only accounted for as originating in the nature of things, but it may be doubted whether any other system be reconcileable to nature.' p. 24.

But neither the present avoirdupois, nor troy weights, were * Frequent use is made of the expressions uniformity of identity and uniformity of proportion, which are explained at the beginning of the Report.

By an uniformity of identity,' says the author, is meant a system founded on the principle of applying only one unit of weights to all weighable articles, and one unit of measures of capacity to all substances thus measured, liquid or dry.

By an uniformity of proportion, is understood a system admitting more than one unit of weights, and more than one of measures of capacity; but in which all the weights and measures of capacity are in an uniform proportion with one another.' Report, p. 6.

then the standard weights of England. The key-stone to the whole fabric of the system of 1266 was the weight of the silver penny sterling. This penny was the two hundred and fortieth part of the tower pound; the sterling or easterling pound which had been used at the mint for centuries before the conquest, and which continued to be used for the coinage of money till the eighteenth year of Henry the Eighth, 1527, when the troy pound was substituted in its stead. The tower or easterling pound weighed three quarters of an ounce troy less than the troy pound, and was consequently in the proportion to it of fifteen to sixteen. Its penny, or two hundred and fortieth part, weighed, therefore, twenty-two and a half grains troy; and that was the weight of the thirty-two kernels of wheat from the middle of the ear, which, according to the statute of 1266, had been taken to form the standard measure of wheat for the whole realm of England. It is also to be remembered, that the eight twelve ounce pounds of wheat, which made the gallon of wine, produced a measure which contained nearly ten of the same pounds of wine. The commercial pound, by which wine and most other articles were weighed, was then of fifteen ounces.' pp. 25, 26.

This system of weights and measures has been, by many of the modern English writers on the subject, supposed to have been established by the statute of 1266. But, upon the face of the statute itself, it is a mere exemplification of ancient ordinances. The coincidences in its composition with those of the ancient Romans, proved by the letter of the Silian law, and by the still existing congius of Vespasian; with those of the Greeks, as described by Galen, and as shown by the proportions between their scale weight and their metrical weight; and with that of the Hebrews, as described in the prophecy of Ezekiel ; show that its origin is traceable to Egypt and Babylon, and there vanishes in the darkness of antiquity. As founded upon the identity of nummulary weights and silver coins, and upon the relative proportion between the gravity and extension of the first articles of human traffic, corn and wine, it is supposed to have originated in the nature and relations of social man, and of things.' p. 29.

The first inroad upon this system in England was made by Edward the First himself, by destroying the identity between the money weight and the silver coin. From the time of the Norman conquest, and long before, that is, for a space of more than three centuries, the tower, easterling, or sterling pound had been coined into twenty shillings, or two hundred and forty of those silver pennies, each of which weighed thirty-two kernels of wheat from the middle of the ear. Edward the First, in the year 1328, coined the same pound into two hundred and forty-three pennies of the same standard alloy. From the moment of that coinage,

the penny called a sterling, however round, however unclipped, had lost the sterling weight, though it still retained the name. This debasement of the coin, once commenced, was repeated by successive sovereigns, till in the reign of Edward the Third, the pound was coined into twenty-five shillings, or three hundred pennies. The silver penny then weighed only 25 kernels of that wheat, of which the penny of 1266 weighed thirty-two. It is probable that, in reducing the weight of their coins, none of those Sovereigns were aware that they were taking away the standard of all the weights and of all the vessels of measure, liquid and dry, throughout the kingdom: but so it was. It destroyed all the symmetry of the system. It has been further affected by the introduction of the troy and avoirdupois weights.' pp. 29, 30.

'The statute of 1495 inverts the order of the old statutes; it is not a composition, but an analysis, of measures. It begins with the bushel, and descends to the kernel. The act of 1266, to make the weight, number, and measure, of corn, money, and wine, begins with the kernel, and ascends by steps to the weight of coin; thence to the measure of wine, by the weight of corn; thence to the measure of corn, by the weight of wine. The mere process of the composition establishes the proportional measures. The statute of 1496 destroys the proportion altogether. It says that every gallon shall contain eight pounds of wheat troy weight, and every pound twelve ounces of troy weight. It substitutes, therefore, instead of the weight of the gallon of wine, prescribed by the statute of 1266, the measure of the wine gallon for the eighth part of the bushel. The gallon, established by this act of 1496, is the gallon of two hundred and twenty-four cubic inches; the Guildhall gallon, which in 1688 was found by the commissioners of the excise to be of that capacity. It contains eight pounds troy weight of wheat, and, consequently, eight pounds avoirdupois of Bordeaux wine, of two hundred and fifty grains troy to the cubic inch. Its bushel would contain seventeen hundred and ninetytwo cubic inches; but if such a bushel ever was made, as the act required, it never was used as a standard. It must have been found to fall too far short of the old standards still existing; and the real standard bushels of Henry the Seventh, in the exchequer, instead of being made according to the process prescribed in his law of 1496, must have been copied from the older standard bushels then existing.

The gallon of two hundred and thirty-one inches,* was also a gallon made under the statute of 1496. But the wheat is of that kind, thirty-two grains of which equipoise the penny of the old

* This content of the wine gallon was made the subject of an express statute under Queen Anne, and has remained unchanged ever since. Report, P. 43.

tower pound; while the wheat that forms the gallon of two hundred and twenty-four inches, is that of which thirty-two kernels weigh a penny weight troy. The weight of the corn in both gallons would be the same; but that, of which each kernel upon the average would be one sixteenth heavier than those of the other, would, by the combined proportion of gravity and numbers, occupy one thirty-second less of space. This is precisely the difference between the gallons of two hundred and twenty-four and two hundred and thirty-one solid inches.

The debasement of the coin had destroyed its original identity with the money weight. The substitution of troy weight, instead of the old easterling pound, for the composition of the gallon, destroyed the coincidence between the water gallon, derived from the ton, the eighth part of the cubic foot, and the wine gallon, containing eight money pounds of wheat. The wine gallon of two hundred and twenty-four, or two hundred and thirty-one eubic inches, no longer bore the same proportion to the cubic foot of water; one consequence of which was, that the hogshead of Bordeaux wine, which the law required to contain sixty-three gallons, no longer contained that number of English gallons; but, from that day to this, has contained from fifty-nine to sixty-one.' pp. 31, 32.

By the English system of weights and measures before the statute of 1496, the London quarter of a ton was the one measure, to which the bushel for corn, the gallon, deduced by measure, for ale, and the gallon, deduced by weight, for wine, were all referred. The hogshead was a vessel deduced from the cubing of linear measure, containing sixty-three gallons, and measuring eight cubic feet. The gallon thus formed, contained 219.43 cubic inches. This wine gallon, by another law, was to contain eight twelve ounce pounds of wheat. One such pound of wheat, therefore, occupied 27.45 cubic inches. The vessel of eight times 27.45 cubic inches filled with wine, the liquor would weigh 54,857.1 grains of troy weight: and the weight of eight such gallons of wine would be 438,856.8 grains troy. The specific gravity of wine being to that of wheat as 175 to 143, the bushel thus formed would be of 2148.5 cubic inches; and its eighth part, or ale gallon, would be 268.5 inches. This is only two inches more than the standard Winchester bushel of the exchequer was found to contain, and two inches less than the bushel as prescribed by the act of 13 William III.; a difference which a variation in the temperature of the atmosphere is of itself adequate to produce. It proves, that the Winchester bushel* has not without reason been preserv

* The Winchester bushel of 2145.6 cubic inches made in the reign of Henry the Seventh, is supposed with good reason to be copied from a standard which had been kept at Winchester when that place was the capital of the kingdom. Report, p. 55.