testing wheat and wine. A measure which would contain as much wheat as would be equal in weight to eight gallons of wine, must contain ten gallons, or be one-fourth larger than the wine measure. The London bushel containing 64 pounds of wheat would hold 80 pounds of water. The law of only one measure for wheat and for ale will require that eight gallons of ale must weigh one-fourth more than eight gallons of wheat.

In the year 1306 a statute of 33 Edward I. ordains that a foot shall contain 12 inches, and an inch 3 barley-corns placed end to end, taken out of the midst of the ear of barley. By another ordinance for the measure of land, the acre is also declared to contain 160 square perches, or 16 in length and 10 in breadth, and another statute names other lengths and breadths of an acre.

In the year 1324, the 17 Edward II., the statute of Edward I. was more fully described, in the ordinance for the determination of measures of length and surface. It was ordained that three barleycorns round and dry, make an inch, twelve inches a foot, three feet a yard, five yards and a-half a perch, and forty perches in length and four in breadth an acre.

14 Edw. III., 1340, in pursuance of the intent of Magna Charta, the King's treasurer was directed to cause standards to be made and sent into all the counties which were not already provided with them. And in 1350 an order was issued recognising the laws of the Great Charter, and declaring that every measure of corn shall be stricken without heap.

If the measure of wheat was struck off level with the rim of the measure, the weight became ruled by the measure of capacity; whereas before that time the measure of capacity was governed by the weight. Hence, as the strike bushel contained only 62 pounds, while the old heaped bushel contained 64 pounds, this reduction of the bushel would reduce the gallon from 280 to 272 cubic inches. And the wine gallon was increased from 224 to 231 cubic inches.

By the statute 25 Edw. III., on account of great damage and deceit done to the people by a weight called " auncel," an order was issued that auncel weight should not be used, but the weights used should be according to the standard of the Exchequer, and that the beam of the balance bow not more to one part than to the other. And two years after, another statute (after noting that some merchants do buy,, "avoir de pois," wools and other merchandises by one weight and sell

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1 It is a curious coincidence to find in the Lilavati, the barley-corn employed as a primary unit of length. Eight breadths of a barleycorn, or three grains of rice in length, make a finger; four times six fingers a forearm or cubit; and other measures of length are formed from these." The Italians, who received their knowledge of the Indian arithmetic from the Arabians, take the origin of their measures from the barley-corn (grano di orgio), and take four to make a dedo (digitus) or finger; four dedi a palmo, &c.

2 The first notice of Avoirdupois with merchandise in the English laws, occurs in 1335, the 9 Edwd. III., 1 stat., c. 1 :-" ordine est et establi qe touz_marchantz alienz et denzeins et touz autres et chescuns de eux de quel estat ou condition qils soient qi achatre ou vendre voillent blez, vins avoir de pois chares pesson et touz autres vivres et vitailles laines drapz mercez marchandises et tote manere dautres choses vendables. In other statutes, the expression is written aver du pois and avoir du pois. The expression avoir du pois may have reference to the weight by which the mercantile pound exceeded the moneyers' pound, and was never employed in weighing the precious metals, but only in estimating the weight of coarse and heavy wares and articles of merchandise. In the Latin Commentary on the

by another) ordains that one weight, and one measure, and one yard, be through all the land, and that wools and all manner avoir de pois be weighed by the balance, so that the tongue of the balance be even.

In the year 1389, the 13th Rich. II., uniformity of weights and measures was ordained throughout the kingdom, except in the County of Lancaster, because in that county it hath always been used to have greater measure than in any other part of the realm.”

An ordinance of 15th Rich. II. directed that 8 bushels stricken be the quarter of corn, and penalties be enforced on all who made use of 9 bushels to the quarter.

By statute of 2 Hen. VI., 1424, a tun of wine was defined to contain 252 gallons; a pipe, 126 gallons; a tertian, 84 gallons; and a hogshead, 63 gallons. At a later period the measure called a tertian or tierce, being the third part of a pipe or butt, was called a puncheon. Another statute of 1429 required all cities, boroughs, and towns to procure a common balance and weights at their own expense, according to the standard of the Exchequer, to be kept by the mayor or constable.

In the year 1495, on petition of the Commons, an Act, 11 Hen. VII., was passed, that weights and measures according to the standard of the Exchequer should be delivered for safe custody to the mayors of boroughs and corporate towns; that all common weights and measures be made according to these standards, and marked as the king's standard; and that all weights and measures in use should be examined twice every year. It was also ordained "that eight bushels raised and stricken shall be a quarter of corn; and fourteen pounds a stone of wool; and twenty-six stone a sack." On more diligent examination some of the measures approved were found deficient, not having been made according to the old laws of the realm.

By an amended statute, 12 Hen. VII., c. 5, it was enacted "that the measure of a bushel contain eight gallons, and that every gallon contain eight pounds of wheat Troy weight, and every pound contain twelve ounces of Troy weight, and every ounce contain twenty sterlings, and every sterling be of the weight of thirty-two corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear of wheat, according to the old laws of the land." The Tower pound then in use, and considered the same as the old Saxon pound, was, by this Act, exchanged for the pound Troy. This alteration was owing to the Intercursus Magnus, or Great Treaty of Commerce concluded between England and

English Laws, entitled Fleta, composed in the time of Edward I. (Lib. iii., c. 12), it is stated expressly that fifteen ounces make the merchant's pound. The Saxon practice was the same as the Roman. They both had two pounds, one for the Exchequer and one for trade, having the ounces the same in both, but the com mercial pound differing from the other only in the number of ounces. This difference between the Saxon mercantile pound of 15 ounces and the Roman pound of 16 ounces was not considerable, not more than half an ounce, and they might pass mutually for each other in trade without much inconvenience. The account of Fleta confirms the fact that the Conqueror's laws confirmed the Saxon practice, and that the subsequent kings followed the same rule, and he also states that the usage continued to his time, and most probably till the reign of Edward III. For in the ninth year of his reign, the prohibition on foreign merchants was removed, and they were at liberty to buy all Avoirdupois wares and merchandise at any place without the realm, and to sell them to any persons whatsoever except the king's enemies. It appears from this Act, and from several others, that the commerce of England was far more considerable in those early times than is commonly imagined.

Flanders the year before. The Flemish pound was adopted as a compliment to the Duchess of Burgundy, and for the mutual convenience of all payments in future, which would be adjusted according to this pound.

The following proclamation of 18 Hen. VIII., November 5, was issued confirming the stat. 12 Hen. VII. c. 5:-"And whereas heretofore every person who brought bullion to the king's mint to be coined paid two shillings and sixpence for the coinage of every pound Tower weight, which differed from the pound Troy three-fourths of an ounce in the pound weight, it was determined that the pound Tower should no more be used, but that all gold and silver should be weighed by the pound Troy, being of twelve ounces, and heavier than the Tower pound by three-fourths of an ounce."

In 1570, the 13th year of Elizabeth, an Act declared 28 gallons of old standard to be about 32 gallons wine measure; whence the old gallon must have contained 264 cubic inches, or a little less than the Winchester gallon, if the wine gallon contained 231; or rather, since the standard gallon of Elizabeth in the Exchequer actually contained 271 cubic inches, the wine gallon of that day must have contained 237.

By a statute of William III., the Winchester bushel is declared to be round, with a plane bottom 18 inches wide throughout, and 8 inches in depth; hence its content must be 2150 42 cubic inches, and a gallon dry measure 268.8 cubic inches; while by an Act of the next reign a wine gallon is declared to be a cylinder, 7 inches in diameter and 6 inches deep, or 231 cubic inches.

In the year 1758 was appointed a Committee on weights and measures, and they reported that serious discrepancies existed in the measure called the gallon, and that they found three standard gallon measures differing from one another. Mr. Bird was authorised to ascertain the exact contents, in cubic inches of water, of each of the standard measures in the Exchequer. He was also ordered to make two brass rods according to the standard yard of the Exchequer, and these, on careful comparison with the yard of the Royal Society, were found to agree as nearly as possible. The Committee recommended the one which the legislature might approve to be marked "Standard Yard, 1758." Though these standards formed by Mr. Bird were not made legal, as the Bill of 1760 for that purpose did not pass into a law, they became the foundation of all the measures which have since been used in England.

Another report was made in the following year, in which it was recited that ever since Magna Charta one weight and one measure was ordained to be used throughout the realm, but that the means adopted in succeeding reigns from Edward III. to Henry VII. had not proved effectual for that purpose.

It will be seen that measures were sometimes to be estimated by weights, or weights by measures; and the standards having been determined, they were in practice still liable to considerable modification, according to the manner in which they were employed, and the nature of the substances concerned, so that various directions for weighing and measuring have been given in the statutes of different reigns, and different allowances have been made for different articles.

In measures of length, the custom of interposing the thumb when cloth was measured by the yard had been so universal that the

thumb came to be considered as a part of the measure, and in process of time an inch was substituted for it, so that a yard was made to consist of 37 inches. This was recognised in 1404, in the reign of Henry IV., when it was ordered that the yard was to have an inch added to it, containing the breadth of a man's thumb.

An Act of 10 Anne, in 1711, directed that each yard of cloth should in measurement have one inch added to it "instead of that which is commonly called a thumb's breadth." There were besides different regulations ordered in different counties for different kinds of cloth, both of linen and of wool. Nothing is prescribed by the laws respecting any particular temperature at which measures are to be employed, the effect of any difference being too inconsiderable to be perceived in any common case; but the state of dryness and moisture is by no means indifferent to the result, and particular directions have beon given in many statutes respecting the effect of wetting cloth on the measure of its length and breadth.

In 1790, the Constituent Assembly of France, on the proposition of M. Talleyrand, agreed to invite the British Government to concur with the French nation on fixing a natural unit of measures founded on the length of the seconds pendulum in the latitude of 45°. A Commission of Members of the Academy of Sciences was appointed, and their report appeared in the following year.

Delambre and his colleagues, after much interruption, completed their operations in 1796. A Commission of Members of the Institute was appointed to inspect and revise the recorded observations and calculations, as well as the instruments employed in the course of the operations. The Commission determined the length of the mètre from the quadrant of the meridian to be equal to 443-295936 lignes, being less than the mètre provisoire (which was founded on La Caille's measure of a degree of the meridian in the latitude of fortyfive degrees) by 146 of a ligne.

The subsequent determination of the unit of weight, the kilogramme or decimètre cubed of distilled water, was made at its greatest density, and not, as it was at first proposed, at the temperature of melting snow.

On 19 Aug. 1798, the original mètre and kilogramme were presented, with a pompous address, to the two Councils of the Legislative Body of France: "This unit" (the mètre), say they, "offers also one aspect which is not without interest. It must be pleasing to the father of a family to say, 'The field which supports my children is such a portion of the globe. I am in this proportion co-proprietor of the world.'" And further noticing that these prototypes shall be deposited among the national archives, to be preserved with religious care; and that the ignorance and ferocity of barbarians shall never

1 They proposed that the ten-millionth part of the quadrant of the meridian should be called the mètre, and be considered as the unit of the new metrical system of France.

That in order to determine the mètre, an arc of the meridian extending from Dunkirk to Barcelona, six degrees and a half to the north, and three degrees to the south of the mean parallel of forty-five degrees, should be measured.

That the quadrant should be divided into one hundred degrees, the degree into one hundred minutes, and the minute into one hundred seconds.

That the weight of a decimètre cubed of distilled water at the temperature of

melting ice should be determined as the unit of measures of weight.

That the subdivisions of all measures should be adapted to the decimal scale.

bear them away as trophies from the valour, the patriotism, and the virtues of a nation enlightened in its interests, its honour, and its rights. But if an earthquake should swallow them up, or if it were possible that a terrific blast of lightning should fuse the metal which is the conservator of this measure, it will not therefore follow, citizen legislators, that the fruit of so many labours, that the general type of our measures, shall be lost to the national glory and the public benefit."

On the grand question of an international system of weights and measures, the British Government at that time appears not to have appreciated the lofty aims of the Constituent Assembly of France; notwithstanding its professions of being "so renowned for its feelings as to the government of nations and the general welfare of mankind.” A motion, however, was made on the question in the House of Commons, but no further steps appear to have followed the motion.

It was not before the year 1837 that the metric system was made legal in France, but then so as not to be brought into use before 1840. It has been affirmed that the adoption of the system had been postponed chiefly from political motives, and by the hatred which attachedto everything connected with the Revolution. In some districts in France at the present day, and even in Paris, the ancient measures have not yet been wholly superseded.

In 1798 an account of some endeavours to ascertain a standard of weight and measure by Sir George Shuckburgh Evelyn was printed in the Transactions of the Royal Society. He states that in 1780 he had taken up the idea of an universal measure from whence all the rest might be derived by means of a pendulum with a moveable centre of suspension. It appears that Mr. Whitehurst, F.R.S., published a pamphlet in 1787, in which he described a method of finding an invariable length. The mechanism he employed consisted of a pendulum of variable length, which was kept vibrating by means of clockwork. The standard measure of length he defined to be nothing more than the difference of the lengths of two pendulums, which vibrate in different but ascertained times. Sir G. S. Evelyn obtained the use of this machine, and having ascertained that the difference between the pendulum which vibrates 42 times, and that which vibrates 84 times in a minute, is equal to 59-89358 English inches, he made use of that length for the determination of a standard of length.

To ascertain a standard of weight he provided microscopes and micrometers for the most exact observations; a hydrostatic balance, which when loaded with six pounds had its equilibrium disturbed by the hundredth part of a grain; a solid cube of brass, whose edge was five inches; and a solid brass cylinder, whose length was six inches and diameter of the base four inches. He employed pure distilled water, and weighing the cube in air and in water he found the weight of a volume of water equal to the volume of the brass cube. The same operation was performed with the brass cylinder, and on comparing the results of these two, and by other experiments, he determined the weight of a certain volume of distilled water to a very great degree of accuracy.

The two results arrived at by these experiments may be thus briefly expressed:-The difference of the lengths of the two pendulums vibrating 42 and 84 times in a minute of mean time, in the latitude of London, at 113 feet above the level of the sea, at 60° of