1887.] 297 [Taylor. 



pound, the pint, tlie gallon, the cubic inch, the cubic foot, etc., but none 

 of these projects has met with much favor. 



The most feasible plan for arriving at a satisfoctory and authoritative 

 determination of so vital an issue would appear to be the appointment of 

 an international commission, with England, Russia and the Germanic States 

 (with France as well, if practicable), comprising the highest representa- 

 tive talent, not alone from the ranks of the physical philosopher and geo- 

 metrician, but as well from the classes of merchants, machinists and civil 

 engineers ; from those most interested and most skilled in the subject, for 

 the purpose of organizing and developing an acceptable and permanent 

 sj'stem of weights and measures. 



Among the labors of such a commission, a very needful one would be 

 to institute a careful and impartial investigation into the exact state and 

 working of the metric system among those nations which had tried it. 

 Assuming nothing, rejecting nothing, accepting nothing, as the ground- 

 work of the future, the commission should endeavor, from a comprehensive 

 survey of all the conditions and all the possibilities involved, to elaborate 

 a scheme best suited to the wants of man, and therefore best entitled to 

 the acceptance of the nations. 



If the final verdict were in favor of a uniform octonary system, it would 

 not be difficult to establish it. If, on the contrary, such a commission 

 should agree to adopt the present French system, their decision would go 

 far to silence all further discussion ; the result would be well worth the 

 labor and delay it might cost. No people would receive the system with 

 greater alacrity, or master its details with more facility and promptitude 

 than those of the United States ; not merely from their general intelligence 

 and mental versatility, but from their long training in the use of their 

 decimal monetary system. 



Such a conference among nations having so manj^ fraternal ties, seems 

 to be eminently proper in every sense, and surely will not be regarded, at 

 this day, as a visionary or illusive expectation. 



The origin of weights and measures is not known, and can be only con- 

 jectured. Their need was contemporaneous with the inflmcy of the 

 human race. 



Man in a slate of nature w^ould, in his strife for existence, seek food, 

 clothing and shelter from the inclemency of the weather. He would kill 

 animals for their flesh, and use their skins for clothing. Tlie adaptation 

 of skins to this purpose would require measures of some kind to be used. 

 Those naturally suggesting themselves would be the finger, the breadth 

 of the hand, the span, the cubit (or extent from the tip of the elbow to 

 the end of the middle finger), the arm, and the fathom (or extent from the 

 extremity of one middle finger to that of the other, with extended arms). 

 So in the construction of a habitation, however rude, whether of logs, or 

 of earth and stones, he would find need for the use of measures, and some 

 of the above would no doubt suppl}^ his needs. Distances traversed in 

 his walks about his habitation would naturally suggest to him measures 



PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXIV. 126. 2l. PRINTED NOV. 21, 1887. 



