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375 



esting as showing how wide is the recogni- 

 tion that is being accorded to the important 

 labors of Mr. Darwin and his co-workers. 



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POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Oar Current Weights and Measures. 



The absurdities of our present no-system 

 of weights and measures surpass belief : 

 they have their parallel in the absurdities 

 of our present no-system of " orthogra- 

 phy," but hardly anywhere else. The ques- 

 tion of reducing to rule the current Eng- 

 lish orthography is now receiving atten- 

 tion, but the prospects of anything being 

 done are gloomy enough. So, too, we hear 

 occasionally of the necessity of reforming 

 our weights and measures, but as yet no 

 real progress has been made in any of the 

 English-speaking countries. Our excellent 

 contemporary, the Engineering and Mining 

 Journal, in the course of an article favoring 

 the adoption of the "metrical" system, 

 gives the following apt illustration of the 

 deplorable multiplicity of standard tons now 

 in use : 



"In a copper-works ore is measured 

 and paid for by the (tribute) ton of 2,352 

 pounds, from the mine through the mill, 

 till it comes out of the jigs, when suddenly 

 it is transformed into a ton of 2,240 pounds 

 (the difference, perhaps, going out in the 

 tailings), which is the ton of the roasting 

 and smelting furnaces and of the teamsters. 

 This continues till the copper is sold or car- 

 ried over some roads, when the ton shrinks 

 again and becomes 2,000 pounds. At the 

 iron-works there are still more tons, differ- 

 ent from these, and on the railroads one 

 will report the coal carried in tons of 2,240 

 pounds, and another connecting road uses 



