TEE METRIC SYSTEM. 395 



longer than the average masculine foot. Both in England and on the 

 continent legislation relating to standards of measurement was ex- 

 ceedingly lax, and in every important town the local magistrate de- 

 veloped or maintained his own municipal system of weights and meas- 

 ures. A comparison of nomenclature in different languages shows 

 that the foot has been the generally selected unit of length; and the 

 Latin word ponduSj meaning a weight, has been used with variations, 

 such as pound and pfund, to express the popular unit of weight. With 

 such unlimited local freedom, such imperfect means of communication, 

 and such scanty diffusion of education, it is not remarkable that even 

 so recently as a century ago the number of different units of length and 

 weight, called by similar names, should be so great as almost to defy 

 numeration. Even as late as 1850, in a 'Dictionary of Weights and 

 Measures' at that time known, 5,237 of these were recorded. There 

 were 135 varieties of foot; 60 of the inch; 29 of the pint; 53 of the 

 mile, and 235 of the pound. The names foot and pound, or their 

 equivalents in widely different languages, have been applied to magni- 

 tudes, nominally constant but practically variable, during the last 2,000 

 years. The Olympic foot, in use among the ancient Greeks, was 

 traditionally derived from the foot of Hercules. To eradicate the 

 popular devotion to these standards, variable as they may be, can not 

 be accomplished in a generation. The range of variation among dif- 

 ferent values of the foot has been from 8.75 inches to 23.22 inches, or 

 over 165 per cent. 



Standards of weight and measure are thus the products of the 

 people. The fundamental condition to be fulfilled is that a standard 

 shall be definite and invariable. The function of legislation is not to 

 create standards, but to adopt and protect them. This necessity was. 

 appreciated certainly as far back as the time of the Eomans, but the 

 recognition of it implies a degree of civilization that was not shared 

 with them by the peoples they had nominally conquered. In England 

 there is no record of such legislation prior to the thirteenth century. 

 By statute of King Henry III., A. D. 1266, the combined standard of 

 money, weight and capacity was defined by the statement that 'an 

 English penny, called a sterling, round and without any clipping, shall 

 weigh thirty-two wheat corns in the midst of the ear ; and twenty pence 

 do make an ounce, and twelve ounces one pound, and eight pounds do 

 make a gallon of wine, and eight gallons of wine do make a London 

 bushel, which is the eighth part of a quarter. ' This pound, thus equal 

 to the weight of 7,680 wheat grains, was known as the sterling or 

 easterling pound, and had long been in use among the nations of eastern 

 Europe. It is supposed to have been brought to England in the time 

 of the Crusades. The troy pound and the avoirdupois pound addition- 

 ally came into use, their origin and time of introduction being un- 



