ed as the favorite of all standards, in spite of all the changes, errors, and inconsistencies, of legislation. But it also proves, that the ale and corn gallon ought to have continued as they originally were, of 268 inches, and the wine gallon of 2191.

The troy and avoirdupois weights are in the proportions to each other of the specific gravity of wheat and of spring water. The twelve and fifteen ounce easterling pounds were intended to be proportional between the gravity of wheat and wine. But they were roughly settled proportions, estimating the weight of wheat to be to that of wine as four to five, and the gravity of wine and of water to be the same. Under the statute of 1496, the wine gallon was of 224 inches. If troy weight was to be introduced, a gallon of this capacity had the great advantage upon which the proportion of uniformity had originally been established. The gallon contained exactly eight pounds avoirdupois of wine. The pint of wine was a pound of wine. The corn gallon of 272 inches corresponding with it, had the same advantage. It was filled with eight pounds of corn: a pint of wheat was a pound of wheat; and the bushel of 2176 inches contained 64 pounds avoirdupois of that wheat, 32 kernels of which weighed one pennyweight troy. But the hogshead, being of eight cubic feet, could have contained only 61 gallons, and the ton would have been of

247.

The wine and ale gallons, now established by law, of 231 and 282 inches, are still in the same proportion to each other as the troy and avoirdupois weights: but neither of them is in any useful proportion to the bushel. The corn gallon only is in proportion to the bushel. Neither the wine nor the corn gallons are in any useful proportion either to the weights or the coins. But the troy and avoirdupois weights are, with all the exactness that can be desired, standards for each other: and the cubic foot of spring water weighs exactly 1000 ounces avoirdupois, by which means the ton, of thirty-two cubic feet measure, is in weight exactly 2000 pounds avoirdupois.

Such was originally the system of English weights and measures, and such is it now in its ruins. The substitution of cubic inches, to settle the dimensions of the gallons and bushels, which began with the last century, was a change of the test of their contents from gravity to extension. They had before been measured by number, weight, and measure: they are now measured by measure alone. This change has been of little use in promoting the principle of uniformity. As it respects the natural standard, it has only been a change from the weight of a kernel of wheat to the length of a kernel of barley: and although it has specified the particular standard bushels and gallons, selected among the variety, which the inconsistencies of former legislation had pro

duced, it has very unnecessarily brought in a third gallon measure quite incompatible with the primitive system; and it has legalized two bushels of different capacity, so slightly different as to afford every facility to the fraudulent substitution of the one for the other; yet, in the measurement of quantities, resulting in a difference of between three and four per cent.

No further change in this portion of English legislation has yet been made. But the philosophers and legislators of Britain have never ceased to be occupied upon weights and measures, nor to be stimulated by the passion for uniformity. In speculating upon the theory, and in making experiments upon the existing standards of their weights and measures, they seem to have considered the principle of uniformity as exclusively applicable to identity, and to have overlooked or disregarded the uniformity of proportion. They found a great variety of standards differing from each other: and instead of searching for the causes of these varieties in the errors and mutability of the law, they ascribed them to the want of an immutable standard from nature. They felt the convenience and the facility of decimal arithmetic for calculation; and they thought it susceptible of equal application to the divisions and multiplications of time, space, and matter. They despised the primitive standards assumed from the stature and proportions of the human body They rejected the secondary standards, taken from the productions of nature most essential to the subsistence of man; the articles for ascertaining the quantities of which, weights and measures were first found necessary. They tasked their ingenuity and their learning to find, in matter or motion, some immutable standard of linear measure, which might be assumed as the single universal standard from which all measures and all weights might be derived.' pp. 44-46.

After a succession of more than sixty years of inquiries and experiments, the British parliament have not yet acted in the form of law. After nearly forty of the same years of separate pursuit of the same object, uniformity, the congress of the United States have shown the same cautious deliberation: they have yet authorized no change of the existing law. That neither country has yet changed its law, is, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance, in reference to the principle of uniformity for both. If this report were authorized to speak to both nations, as it is required to speak to the legislature of one of them, on the subject in which the object of pursuit is the same for both, and the interest in it common to both, it would say-Is your object uniformity? Then before you change any part of your system, such as it is, compare the uniformity that you must lose, with the uniformity that you may gain by the alteration. At this hour, fifteen millions of Britons, who, in the next generation, may be twenty, and ten mil

lions of Americans, who, in less time, will be as many, have the same legal system of weights and measures. Their mile, acre, yard, foot, and inch-their bushel of wheat, their gallon of beer, and their gallon of wine, their pound avoirdupois, and their pound troy, their cord of wood, and their ton of shipping, are the same. They are of the nations of the earth, the two, who have with each other the most of that intercourse which requires the constant use of weights and measures. Any change whatever in the system of the one, which should not be adopted by the other, would destroy all this existing uniformity. Precious, indeed, must be that uniformity, the mere promise of which, obtained by an alteration of the law, would more than compensate for the abandonment of this.' pp. 46, 47.

After this minute and critical examination of the English system of weights and measures, of which we are able to present but a small part to our readers, the author proceeds to give a detailed account of the celebrated modern French system. The English system, as we have already hinted, the system which, till lately, has prevailed in its more essential features throughout Europe, is the work of time, and the result of successive expedients resorted to as the occasion required. The new system of France is the fruit of an enlightened philosophy. It regards man in his social, improved state. It has respect, not only to his necessities, but to his comforts, his convenience, his improvement. It looks less indeed to his

animal, than to his intellectual wants, less to the common occasions of life, than to the refinements of art and science, less to the every day concerns of individual man, than to the vast and multiplied intercourse of nations.

'It is one of those attempts to improve the condition of human kind, which, should it even be destined ultimately to fail, would, in its failure, deserve little less admiration than in its success. is founded upon the following principles:

It

1. That all weights and measures should be reduced to one uniform standard of linear measure.

2. That this standard should be an aliquot part of the circumference of the globe.

3. That the unit of linear measure, applied to matter, in its three modes of extension, length, breadth, and thickness, should be the standard of all measures of length, surface, and solidity.

4. That the cubic contents of the linear measure, in distilled water, at the temperature of its greatest contraction, should New Series, No. 9.

26

furnish at once the standard weight and measure of capacity. 5. That for every thing susceptible of being measured or weighed, there should be only one measure of length, one

weight, one measure of contents, with their multiples and subdivisions exclusively in decimal proportions.

6. That the principle of decimal division, and a proportion to the linear standard, should be annexed to the coins of gold, silver, and copper, to the monies of account, to the division of time, to the barometer and thermometer, to the plummet and log lines of the sea, to the geography of the earth and the astronomy of the skies; and, finally, to every thing in human existence susceptible of comparative estimation by weight or measure.

7. That the whole system should be equally suitable to the use of all mankind.

8. That every weight and every measure should be designated by an appropriate, significant, characteristic name, applied exclusively to itself." pp. 47, 48.

According to this scheme, the unit of linear measure and basis of the whole system, is the ten millionth part of the quadrant of the meridian, extending from the equator to the pole. This is called the metre, and is almost exactly the length of the seconds' pendulum at Paris, or 394 English inches nearly. A cube, whose side is one tenth of a metre, constitutes the unit of measures of capacity. It is called the litre, and is equal to about 24 English pints. The unit of weights is the gramme. It is the weight in vacuo of a quantity of pure water, at its maximum of density, that shall exactly fill a cubical vessel, each side of which is one hundredth part of the metre. It is equivalent to about 15 grains Troy. In land measure the unit, called the are, is a square surface, each of whose sides is ten metres. It is nearly equal to ten perches. The unit of measure for fire wood, denominated the stere, is a cubic metre, containing about 354 English cubic feet, or somewhat more than one fourth of a cord. Each of these units is decimally divided and subdivided. Multiples also are taken according to this same decimal scale. To express the denominations less than the unit, the words deci, centi, milli, borrowed from the Latin language, are prefixed to the unit to signity a tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth, of this quantity respectively. In like manner the multiples of each unit are denoted by significant names, the prefixed syllables being

derived from the Greek language. Thus, while deci-metre, centi-metre, &c., mean a tenth part, a hundredth part, &c., of a metre, deca-metre stands for ten metres, hecto-metre for one hundred metres, kilo-metre for one thousand metres, and myria-metre for ten thousand metres. The same prefixes are applied to each of the several units, and furnish all the requisite denominations.*

The theory of this nomenclature,' it is justly remarked, 'is perfectly simple and beautiful. Twelve new words, five of which denote the things, and seven the numbers, include the whole system of metrology; give distinct and significant names to every weight, measure, multiple, and subdivision, of the whole system; discard the worst of all the sources of error and confusion in weights and measures, the application of the same name to different things; and keep constantly present to the mind the principle of decimal arithmetic, which combines all the weights and measures, the proportion of each weight or measure with all its multiples and divisions, and the chain of uniformity which connects together the profoundest researches of science with the most accomplished labors of art and the daily occupations and wants of domestic life, in all classes and conditions of society. p. 55.

This plan, thus matured, required several scientific operations to be performed, namely,

1. To measure an arc of the meridian from Dunkirk to Barcelona, being between nine and ten degrees of latitude, including the 45th, with about six to the north and three to the south of it, and to make upon this line all suitable astronomical observations. 2. To measure anew the bases, which had served before for the admeasurement of a degree in the construction of the map of France.

3. To verify, by new observations, the series of triangles, which had been used on the former occasion, and to continue them to Barcelona.

4. To make, at the 45th degree of latitude, at the level of the

*The coins and monies of account were not originally a part of the above system. They were made to conform to it by adopting the franc, a name previously in use, and synonymous with livre, as the unit of both. The weight of this coin, in silver having one tenth alloy, was fixed at five grammes; its tenth part was called décime, and its hundredth part centime. The reformation was extended also to the calendar. The months were made to consist of thirty days each, and were divided respectively into three weeks of ten days each; the day was divided into ten hours, and the hour into an hundred minutes, and the minute into a hundred seconds. New and significant names were applied to the months of the year and days of the week. This part of the decimal reform has been entirely abolished.