Elementary arithmetic, with brief notices of its history... by Robert Potts.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

19

But they could not give the m6tre or decimetre, although they should
know their dimensions as well as those of the yard or foot.
"The decimal principle can be applied only with many qualifications to any general system of metrology; that its natural application
is only to numbers, and that time, space, gravity, and extension, inflexibly
reject its sway. It is doubtful whether the advantage to be obtained
by any attempt to apply decimal arithmetic to weights and measures
would ever compensate for the increase of diversity, which is the unavoidable consequence of change. Decimal arithmetic is a contrivance
of man for computing numbers, and not a property of time, space, or
matter. Nature has no partialities for the number ten, and the
attempt to shackle her freedom with it will for ever prove abortive." 1
In the year 1824 the Act of Imperial Weights and Measures
(5 Geo. IV. c. 74) was passed, founded on the preceding reports for
ascertaining and establishing uniformity in weights and measures.
The preamble of the Act declares the necessity that weights and
measures should be just and uniform for the security of commerce,
and for the good of the community; and recognises the provision of
the Great Charter, wherein it is provided that there shall be but one
measure and one weight throughout the realm. Of nearly sixty Acts
of Parliament of former reigns, some have been wholly or partly
repealed, and others have been confirmed by this new Act for Imperial
Weights and Measures. This Act brought back into use very nearly
the ancient corn measure which had been superseded for between
three and four centuries; the new measure being somewhat greater
than the old measure by nearly one part in one hundred of the new
measure.
This Act directs that after 1st May, 1825, the standard brass weight
of one pound Troy weight, made in the year 1758, then in custody of
the Clerk of the House of Commons, shall be the standard measure
and unit of weight, and denominated the imperial standard Troy pound,
from which all other weights shall be derived; and that one-twelfth
part of this pound shall be an ounce, and one-twentieth part of the
ounce shall be a pennyweight, and that one twenty-fourth part of a
pennyweight shall be a grain, so that 5760 grains make a pound Troy:
and that 7000 grains make a pound Avoirdupois, and that one-sixteenth part of this pound shall be an ounce, and that one-sixteenth
part of this ounce shall be a dram.
And in case of loss or injury to the standard, since it has been
ascertained by the late commissioners that a cubic inch of distilled
water, weighed in air by brass weights at the temperature of 62~ of
Pahrenheit's thermometer, the barometer being at 30 inches, is equal
to 252'458 grains, of which the imperial Troy pound contains 5760,
1 In the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of
Commons, on Weights and Measures in 1862, the following question by the Chairman, and answer by James Yates, Esq., F.R. S., are printed, p. 54:"499. Did not the Americans, in the year 1821, establish an inquiry by Comission into the desirability of adopting a decimal system?-Yes; it was brought before
them, and they appointed Mr. John Quincy Adams to inquire into the subject and
make a report; and this is the report which he delivered to Congress (handing book
to the Committee), and the main substance of his report is, that he most decidedly and
in the strongest terms recommends the metric system."
If Mr. Yates had read Mr. Adams's report, he could only have made out his answer
on the principle of the non-natural employment of language, as practised by a certain
school of Oxford theologians.