2'"' S. NrSO., Ju ivV 2G. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



71 



MEECATOB {NOT TUE) AUTHOR OF THE POUND 

 AND MIL SCHEME. 



(2"'^ S. i. 491.) 



Your correspondent Mb. James Yates, whose 

 zealous advocacy of the introduction into the Uni ted 

 Kingdom of the French system of money, weights, 

 and measures, is so well known, has accompanied 

 his question as to " who was Mercator ? " with 

 some observations intended to show that Mercator 

 was the author, and published the first idea of, the 

 pound and mil scheme. 



I venture to submit to your readers that, except 

 we are disposed to attach much importance to 

 Mercator's suggestion that the thousandth part of a 

 pound should be called a mil, Mr. Yates's theory 

 that Mercator set up a scheme which has bden 

 merely taken up by scientific men, by the Decimal 

 Association and by parliamentary majorities, will 

 not hold good. 



It appears to me that the proposed decimalisa- 

 tion of the pound sterling into florin, cent, and 

 mil, is not only preferable in every respect to 

 ]\Ir. Yates's plan for the conversion of the pound 

 sterling into twenty-five ten-pences, or British 

 francs ; but that, moreover, it is no new scheme, 

 and has been before the European world of science 

 as long as decimal fractions have been known. 



The illustrious Simo7i Stevin, writing (or rather 

 publishing) in 1585, whilst advocating the deci- 

 malisation of money, weights, and measures, took 

 care to dissuade his readers from abandoning the 

 accustomed chief units, which are appropriately 

 enough termed commencements. 



In Article vi. of Steviiis Appendix to La 

 Disme, it is stated : 



" Afin de dire en brief et en general, la somme et con- 

 tenu de cest article, faut scavoir qu'on partira toutes 

 niesures, comme Longue, Humide, Seiche, Argent, &c., 

 par la precedente dixiesme progression et chasque fameuse 

 espece d'icelles se nommera commencement ; comme 

 Marc, commencement des pois par lesquels se poise I'or et 

 I'argent ; Livre, commencement des autres pois communs ; 

 Livre de gros en Flandres, Livre Esterlain en Angleterre, 

 Ducat en Ilispaigne, &c., commencement de monnoye." 



It happens that in England we shall not be the 

 first country which has had to change from a 

 vigesimal and duodecimal to a decimal scale of 

 account. 



Cuthbert Tonstall, when Bishop Elect of Lon- 

 don, printed, in 1522, his learned and elegant 

 treatise on arithmetic, which contains many such 

 suggestions as would lead to a complete decimal sys- 

 tem, and he remarked upon the then widely spread 

 custom of keeping accounts in twenties and twelves 

 as subdivisions of the nominal pound and shilling. 

 It will be seen, however, from the following ex- 

 tract, that the bishop saw a point or two of dif- 

 ference between iuternatioh^l coins of account 



and international coins of circulation, which it will 

 be well to observe even at this time : 



" Nunc ff tate nostra apud singulas penfe nationes aurei 

 pro regum aut principum arbitrio varium habent pre- 

 cium : sic libra;, sic solidi, ut nunc sunt vocabula : mag- 

 nam pro regionibus diversitatem habent. Cajterum 

 illud mirum videtur: quomodo in tanta librarum et soli- 

 dorum £estimationis ditterentia, pro suo cuiiisque regionis 

 more, multae tamen nationes consentiunt ; ut vulgari 

 lingua solidiim vocent: quod denariolos duodecim vul- 

 gares complectitiir, librani quod solidos viginti." — 

 Page 271 of edition of 1529. 



When Stevin wrote upon the same subject he 

 advocated decimal subdivision, but with careful 

 adherence, as far as possible, to accustomed unit.^. 



" — que joignant les vulgaires partitions qu'il y a 

 maintenant des Mesures, Pois et Argent (demeurant 

 chasque capitale mesure, Pois et Argent, en tons lieux 

 immuable) Ton ordonnast encore legitimement par les 

 Superieurs, la susdicte dixiesme partition, h fin que 

 chascun qui voudroit la pourroit user. 



" II avanceroit aussi la chose si les valeurs d'argent, 

 principalement de ce qui se forge de nouveau, fussent 

 valuez siu' quelques Primes, Secondes, Tierces, &c. Mais 

 si tout cecy ne fust pas mis en oeuvre, si tost comme nous 

 le pouvrions souhaiter, il nous conteutera premierement, 

 qu'il fera du bien h nos successenrs, car il est certain que 

 si les liommes futurs, sont de telle nature comme ont este 

 les precedens, qu'ils ne seront pas tousiours negligens en 

 leur si grand avantage." 



The preceding extract only requires one ex- 

 planation, viz. that by Primes, Secondes et Tierce.^, 

 words in the decimal system suggested probably 

 by the works of Purbach and Muller, Stevin meant 

 tenths, hundredths and thousandths ; and altering 

 these words {as applied to coins) to florins, cents, 

 and mils, we have the system which is in process 

 and progress of introduction at the present time. 



It is particularly worthy of note, that pre- 

 viously to the introduction of the decimal metrical 

 system into France, accounts were kept in livre.*, 

 sols, and deniers : twenty sols making one livre 

 tournois, and twelve deniers one penny. This 

 vigesimal and duodecimal system had prevailed 

 from remote antiquity in France, as it had done 

 in England. The two nations (as the remarks of 

 Bishop Tonstall illustrate) had the same system 

 of account ; but then the highest French unit, the 

 liv7'e tournois, was so very much less in value in 

 comparison with the highest English unit, the 

 pound sterling, that when the livre tournois, sol, 

 and deniei', came to be decimalised, — although the 

 French substantially retained their highest unit, as 

 we ought to retain ours, the pound sterling, — they 

 could only coin into francs (nearly equal to the 

 livre tournois), and into primes and secondes (i. e. 

 ten centimes, and one centime); whilst we can 

 coin our units, of account and of circulation, into 

 livres, primes, secondes, and tieives (pounds, florins, 

 cents, and mils). 



Surely, with these inherent advantages in our 

 system, we need not be apprehensive of any in- 

 superable difiiculty in carrying out POw, what the 



