1887. J 311 [Taylor. 



100 centigrammes make 1 gramme. 



100 grammes . " 1 hectogramme. 



100 hectogrammes " 1 myriagramme. 



This suppression of the alternate denominations would have the advan- 

 tage of abolishing the very objectionable terms decigramme and deca- 

 gramme. Instead of the extreme awkwardness of taking one quarter of 

 a gramme (2^ decigrammes), we are furnished with the value in whole 

 units, by taking twenty-five centigrammes, just as we say twenty-five 

 cents instead of two and a half dimes. 



Simple and taking as this proposal is, it is not free from serious objec- 

 tions. It. in fact, complicates rather than simplifies, by giving a very 

 wide range for estimating values. While it thus multiplies the units, and 

 enlarges the interval between them tenfold, it only furnishes us with a 

 single additional bisection, namely, the quartering. An eighth would still 

 require a fractional expression. Its benefit, therefore, bears no propor- 

 tion to the increased trouble and confusion involved. The necessity uni- 

 versally felt for quaternal and octaval divisions, would infalliblj^ operate 

 here as it has in our currency ; and we should constantly hear of 37^ 

 hundredths of a pound ; 02^ hundredths of a pint, etc., which would be, 

 in no respect, better than 3| tenths, or %\ tenths. The truth is, we need 

 more frequent denominations than decimal ones, rather than more distant 

 stepping-stones ; and for some purposes, even the binary ratio of progres- 

 sion is not too slow.' In looking over the various tables of weights and 

 measures prevailing throughout Europe, it will be found that a large ma- 

 jority of the factors are 2, 4, and 8, with occasional resort to 3 and 6 — the 

 number 4 being, perhaps, the favorite number for the more customary de- 

 nominations.* 



Amid the conflicting claims of the numerous plans proposed for simpli- 

 fying and uniting our incongruous metrology, there appears, at first sight, 

 so much of irreconcilable contrariety, that it might be concluded that a 

 combination of the respective advantages contemplated was hopeless and 

 impossible ; and that we were only left to a choice of evils. A more care- 

 ful scrutiny will however discover a pliilosophy in these very discrepan- 

 cies, and furnish the elements of a practical concord. On the one side, the 

 convenience of a system of divisions or multiples conforming exactly to 

 that by which we are compelled to perform all arithmetical operations, is 

 so obvious, and so universally recognized,! that the advocates of an entire 

 decimalization are certainly justified in their zeal. On the other hand, the 

 necessity of biual progression and division, though not so generally ack- 



* This is rendered very apparent on turning over the pages of Woolhouse's little work 

 on the " Weights and Measures of all Nations." No. 101, of Weale's Rudimentary Series. 



t " The great improvement of having but one arithmetical scale for reckoning integers 

 and fractions of every kind. * * * is one so obvious, and, Mithal, so little difficult, that it 

 is a matter of surprise that it should not have been attempted till near a thousand years 

 after decimal arithmetic was first introduced into Europe" {Edinburgh Review for Janu- 

 ary, ISO", Vol. ix, page 373). 



