Comparison of Metric and Customary Standard Weights and Measures. [Volume: 8, Issue: 6, 1890, pp. 338-341]

338

UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION OF

[VOL. 8,

the city of Pittsburgh is situated, and this same pre-eminence is maintained in the years 1888 and 1889; and we find that Cook county,
and the county of Will, which includes all the works in the city
of Chicago, together with the works of the city of Joliet, produced
more steel than Allegheny county and Cambria county, Pennsylvania, together; which counties include all the works of the city
of Pittsburgh and adjoining towns, and the large establishment of
the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown.
"We find further, that the State of Illinois, which practically
means the city of Chicago, including the works at Joliet, now produce more than one-fourth of all the iron and steel in America;
and that the works owned by the Illinois Steel Coinpany, which
includes all the works heretofore mentioned in the brief chronological table given above, have a capacity for making one-third
of all steel rails that can be made in America.
"A singular fact connected with these statements is that nowhere
within the limits of the city of Chicago, or its neighborhood, or
indeed in the State of Illinois, does there exist any of the raw
materials required for the manufacture of iron and steel. All the
ores necessary are brought a distance of 350 miles, from the Lake
Superior region; and all the fuel for iron smelting is brought a
distance of nearly 600 miles from the Connellsville district, Pennsylvania."
Comparison of Metric and Customary Standard
Weights and Measures.
THE United States Coast and Geodetic Survey has lately issued
tables for converting United States weights and measures from the
customary to the metric standard and vice versa. As the metric
system was legalized in the United States in 1866, as the standard
metre has lately been deposited with the Coast and Geodetic
Survey, and as the use of the decimal system is becoming more
common daily, we have thought it would be of interest to our readers
to extract from this table the standard comparative values of the
units of each system, which are given below.