328 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Good Hope House of Assembly in August, 1903. A similar action 

 was taken about the same time in the New Zealand parliament. 



A bill for the compulsory adoption of the metric system in Great 

 Britain within a specified period, passed the House of Lords last 

 year, and has also passed its first reading in the House of Commons. 

 The bill was supported by petitions from councils of cities, towns and 

 counties, having a total population of 2,800,000; as well as by trade- 

 unions and other organizations to the total enrolment of one third of 

 a million persons. 



In this country, a bill for the compulsory adoption of the metric 

 system within a specified time was introduced into congress in 1903, 

 but was withdrawn. Eesolutions in favor of the adoption of the metric 

 system in the United States have been passed by the Franklin Institute, 

 the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and the American 

 Electrochemical Society. On the other hand, resolutions opposing the 

 adoption of the metric system have been recently passed by the Ameri- 

 can Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association of 

 Toolmakers, and the Association of American Manufacturers. The 

 principal objection in these cases seems to have been the dread of 

 expense in transition. 



It would seem to be only a question of time when the elimination 

 of the useless, and the survival of the fittest, will bring about the 

 universal adoption of the system. Even assuming, however, that the 

 change were made officially by the United States government within 

 the next ten years, the existing units would continue to persist in some 

 degree for many years. Thus inch-pipes will doubtless exist in the 

 country for many years to come as a physical reality; even though 

 such pipe should come to be called 25-millimeter pipe. Even at this 

 time, more than one hundred years after the inauguration of our 

 decimal currenc}', one still occasionally hears the ' shilling ' quoted 

 as a price, a relic of colonial currency. When so used in New Eng- 

 land, a ' shilling ' appears to mean one sixth of a dollar, or 16 2-3 cents. 



In time to come, and probably much beyond the date of the 

 universal adoption of the metric system, decimal reform may perhaps 

 extend to other fields. Thus the cumbersome and complex systems 

 of dividing angles sexagesimally into degrees, minutes and seconds, 

 is generally admitted to be much inferior to a decimal subdivision. 

 Some day, perhaps, angles may be expressed decimally all over the 

 world. The day also is divided in a cumbersome way into hours, 

 minutes and seconds. A decimal subdivision of a day would have 

 much advantage over the existing plan. But decimal reform in angles 

 and in time is undoubtedly much more remote and problematical 

 than in weights and measures; nor is there the same exigency for 

 decimal reform in these directions. 



