SHALL WE ADOPT THE METRIC SYSTEM? 767 



"2. The unit of area: The are is 119-60332+ square yards. 



"3. The unit of liquid measure : The litre is 0'264:18635+ gallon, or 

 1-0567454+ quart, or 2-1134908+ pints. 



" 4. The unit of space : The stere is 1-308764+ cubic yard, or 

 35-386636+ cubic feet. 



" 5. The unit of weight is : The gramme = 15-43234874+ grains 

 troy. 



" 6. The unit of roods is : The kilometre = 1,000 metres = 0-62138+ 

 mile. 



" 7. The unit of land-measure for farms and city lots is : The hectare 

 = 2-47114+ acres. 



"8. The commercial unit of weight is: The kilogramme = 1,000 

 grammes = 2-20462125+ pounds avoirdupois. 



" What will our farmers, citizens, merchants, tradesmen, and mechan- 

 ics do with these figures ? And will they submit to being obliged to re- 

 duce acres, feet, inches, pounds, and ounces by multiplying or dividing 

 by the above figures ? v 



" I think that to make the French metric system obligatory between 

 individuals in this country will be an impolitic and arbitrary interfer- 

 ence with the rights, interests, and habits and customs of the people." 



The Surgeon-General reports : " In compliance with instructions 

 from your oiBce calling for reports as to objections to making the use 

 of the metrical system of weights and measures obligatory in all govern- 

 ment transactions, and also obligatory in all transactions between in- 

 dividuals, I have the honor to report as follows : 



" 1. As to the first of the questions submitted in the resolution, I feel 

 constrained to express the opinion that the gravest inconveniences 

 would immediately result from an attempt to render obligatory upon gov- 

 ernment officers only the use of a system of weights and measures 

 whose units are so entirely different from those which have heretofore 

 been, and would then continue to be, in general use among the peo- 

 ple. I pass by the enormous difficulties which would result from com- 

 pelling government officers to use a different unit for the measures of 

 length from that used by the people. This would not only throw into 

 confusion the whole system of land measurement as practiced in the 

 United States, but would produce the most serious inconveniences from 

 the resulting effort to use in all government works tools and machinery 

 gauged by a different standard from those in common use. These and 

 similar inconveniences, some of them of the most deplorable kind, would 

 be felt so much more severely by other departments of the Government 

 that the duty of representing the force of these objections may safely 

 be left to them. I confine myself, therefore, in this report, to a brief 

 statement of the disastrous inconveniences which would result to the 

 medical department of the army from the measure in question. This 

 measure would compel the substitution of the metric sj^stem of weights 

 and measures in prescribing and dispensing medicines in the army for 



