Taylor.] dUU [Oct. 21, 



or made a multiple of the foot, thereby adapting it to the remainder of the 

 system. 



In 1266, the first positive attempt was made to change the common 

 weight into the troy,* under the name of the weight of assize ; a statute 

 51. Henry III enacted "tliat an English penny called a sterling round, 

 and without any clipping, shall weigh 33 grains of wheat, from the mid- 

 dle of the ear, and 20 pence to make an ounce, 12 ounces a pound, 8 

 pounds a gallon of wine, and 8 gallons of wine a bushel of London, 

 which is the eighth part of a quarter." This penny weight was divided 

 into 24 grains. 



But neither the present avoirdupois, nor troy weights, were then the 

 standard weights of England. The foundation of the sj^stem of 1266 was 

 the penny sterling, which was the 240th part of the tower pound ; the 

 sterling or easterling pound which had been used at the mint for centuries 

 before the conquest, and which continued to be used for the coinage of 

 money until the eighteenth j'ear of Henry the Eighth, 1527, when the troy 

 pound was substituted in its stead. Tlie tower pound weighed 3G0 grains 

 (or y\^) less than the pound ivoj, and the penny, therefore, weighed 22^ 

 grains troy. 



Tlie philosophers and legislators of Britain have never ceased to be 

 occupied upon weights and measures, nor to be influenced by the strong 

 desire for uniformity. They found a great variety of standards differing 

 from each other, and instead of searching for the causes of these varieties 

 in the errors and mutabilitj^ of the laws, they ascribed them to the want 

 of an immutable standard from nature. They felt the convenience and the 

 facility of decimal arithmetic for calculation ; and they thought it suscep- 

 tible of equal application to the divisions and multiplications of time, 

 space and matter. They despised the primitive standards assumed from 

 the stature and proportions of the human body. They rejected the sec- 

 ondary standards taken from the productions of nature most essential to 

 the subsistence of man ; the articles for ascertaining the quantities of 

 which weights and measures were first found necessary. They tasked 

 their ingenuity and their learning to find, in matter or in motion, some 

 immutable standard of linear measure which might be assumed as the sin- 

 gle universal standard, from which all measures and all weights might be 

 derived. In France their results have been embodied into a great and 

 beautiful system. England and America have been more cautious. 



Among the earlier measures of length used by various nations are 

 found such as the "finger's length," the "digit" (second joint of the 

 forefinger), the "finger's breadth," the "palm," the "span," the 

 " cubit" (length of forearm), the "nail," the " orgyia " (stretch of the 

 arms), the "foot," the "pace," etc., and the names of these measures, 



* When the troy weight was introduced into England is not known. It was iutrod-jced 

 into Europe from Cairo in Egypt about the time of the Crusades, in the 12th century. 

 Some suppose its name was derived from Tmyes, a city in France, which first adopted it ; 

 Others think it was derived from Troy-novant, the former name of Loudon. 



