!108 Professor Renwick on the 



brated Bird, and as we know of no adequate means employed 

 in 1804 and 1822 to determine the truth of the new measures of 

 capacity, I conceive I am warranted in stating that the original 

 standards of weight and measure of this State, as they existed on 

 the day of the declaration of its independence, have been lost; 

 and the present is one of those junctures that call for scientific 

 investigations to recover such of the ancient denominations as it 

 may be expedient to restore identically, and to deduce from 

 them the others in the most unexceptionable manner. With a 

 view to this object, I have already stated that I consider the 

 parliamentaiy standard of 1760, as unquestionably identical 

 with the standard of our state as it existed at the Revolution, 

 and that the experiments of Sabine, in Columbia College, have 

 provided the facility, within our own state, of restoring the yard 

 to its original magnitude. After the experiment shall have been 

 made in this building, the measure should be transferred to 

 some proper public edifice, the site at least of which may, in 

 all succeeding ages, be resorted to, in order to confirm, or 

 restore to their primitive dimension, existing weights and mea- 

 sures. 



If, however, it should be preferred that the yard at present in 

 the ofl5ce of the Secretary of State should be the standard, it 

 will be essential, in order to perpetuate it, to make similar 

 experiments of comparison with the pendulum, one set of which 

 should be made in this institution, as in this way alone its ratio 

 to foreign measures (particularly to those of England) can be 

 obtained. But I conceive this plan to be objectionable in seve- 

 ral points of view, particularly as more difficult and expensive, 

 and as adopting for a standard a measure whose authority 

 is at least questionable. It would also prevent any positive 

 legislation on the subject until after the experiments shall be 

 made. The English avoirdupoise pound, as a separate standard, 

 appears to have been lost. So long since as 1798, Sir George 

 Shuckburgh could find none in the public offices that could be 

 considered as authentic*, and it has, therefore, been customary 

 in England to deduce it from the troy pound, on the principle 

 that it was equal to 7000 grs., of which the troy pound contained 

 5760. The experiments of Graham, in 1743, on weights of 

 * Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. xviii. 



