PVeights and Meafures, — New Pendulum. 205 



■Communicable, thefe ftandards will have the additional property of introducing the leaft pof- 

 fible deviation from ancient pradticc, or inconvenience in modern ufe. 



(§. 43.) Before T clofe this paper, after having faid fo much on the fubje£l of weights and 

 meafures, it may not be improper to add a few words upon a topic that, although not imme- 

 diately conneifted, has feme affinity to it ; I mean the fubje£l of the prices of provifions, and 

 of the neceflaries of life, &;c. at different periods of our hiftory, and, in confequence, the de- 

 preciation of money. Several authors have touched incidentally upon this queftion, and 

 fome few have written profeifedly upon it ; but they do not appear to me to have drawn a 

 dtftin£t conclufion from their own documents. It would carry me infinitely too wide, to 

 give a detail of all the facts I have colle(a:ed ; I fliall therefore content myfelf with a general 

 table of their refults, deduced from taking a mean rate of the price of each article, at the 

 particular periods, and afterwards combining thefe means, to obtain a general mean for the 

 depreciation at that period ; and laftly, by interpolation, reducing the whole into more regu- 

 lar periods, from the conquefts to the prefent time: and, however I may appear to defcend 

 below the dignity of philofophy, in fuch oeconomical refearches, I truft I fhall find favour 

 with the hiftorian, at leaft, and the antiquary *. 



{The'author's appendix hereafter.) 



V. 



Defcriptionofa neiv Arrangem'.nt of the Bars in the Gridiron Pendulum. With a Drawing. 



{W. N.) 



X? IG 2, 3, 4, &c. in plate IX. rcprefent a pendulum which 1 conftrufled fome 

 months ago. It differs only in the arrangement from the modern gridiron pendulum of fire 

 bars. The fame letters denote the fame parts in all the figures. A A is a cylindrical box 

 of brafs, filled with lead, conftituting the principsl mafs of the pendulum. In fig. 4 a 

 feilion of this piece is feen in the fe(ftion of its axis. A piece of brafs, P P P P, is let. 

 through the middle of this cylinder and firmly fecured by a flanch piece fcrewed to the brafs 

 face. Two holes are made quite through the cylinder, and the piece of brafs P P, parallel 

 to the diameter of its face, for the purpofe offufFering the two fteel rods B B to pafs through. 

 Two fteel pieces, L and M N O, are filled to fquare cavity in the piece P P. Thefe pieces, 

 of which fig. 7 gives a vertical fedtion, and fig. 8 the feftion parallel to the horizon, are ap- 

 plied together, bypaffing the fcrew M through the end hole in L, and then fere wing on the 

 milled head or nut K, in which fituation the two fleel pieces fit the fquare hols ; the vertical 

 hole in L being applied over the long hole N, and nearly coinciding with one of the dia- 

 metral perforations in A A, while the other, O, nearly coincides with the other perforation. If 



* This table has already been given in our Journal, vol. II. 184. 

 Vol. III.— August 1799. E e ia 



