142 FUNDAMENTAL UNITS OF MEASURE. 



was i\ copy of the British Troy i^oiiiid of 1758, which in 1825 became 

 the imperial standard. It if-, preserved in the mint at Phihidelphia, 

 and is known as the mint pound. The standard avoirdupois ponnd of 

 the Treasnry Department was derived from tliis Troy ponnd. Both are 

 very inferior in construction and nnsnitable for standards. The pres- 

 ent imperial standard of mass of Great Britain is a platinum avoirdu- 

 pois ponnd. It was derived from a copy of the standard referred to 

 above, which was lost in the bnrninft' of the Parliament houses'. AvS 

 the imperial standard and our own have thus a common ancestor, it is 

 assumed that they are the same. 



Besides these units of length and mass the executive ofticers of the 

 Government adopted two units of volume, the gallon which contains 

 231 cubic Incbes and the bushel of 2150-42 cubic. inches. They are old 

 English measures and differ very iiuitefially from the imperial gallon 

 and bushel now in use in Great Britain. 



The above statements apply to what may ])e known as national or 

 United States standards only in the limited sense that they are the 

 standards of the executive branch of the Government. The whole 

 subject of standards, with the exception as to the metric system already 

 noted was, in the absence of definite action by Congress, left to the law- 

 making authorities of the several States. In view of the great and 

 intelligent interests in this subject exhibited by Washington, Jeffer- ' 

 sou, Adams, Gallatin, and others of the early statesmen, the omission 

 to legislate in Congress must be attributed largely to the fact of great 

 dissatisfaction with the present system and a hesitancy to recommend 

 any other, however perfect it might seem to be, until it had received 

 the test of actual trial. Eealiziug the danger which was impending of 

 inharmonious and unscientific legislation by the several States, Con- 

 gress decided in 1836 to encourage uniformity throughout the country 

 by the distribution among the various State governments of complete 

 sets of weights and measures copied from the standards adopted in the 

 United States office of weights and measures. Some States had already 

 legalized standards dittering somewhat from these, but they were soon 

 accepted by all, thus establishing a practically unifi)rm system through- 

 out the country and one in agreement with that adopted by the Ciov- 

 erument. Strictly speaking, however, each State has its own stand- 

 ards, and they are entirely independent of, although copied from, those 

 in use at Washington. But, as has already been explained, the latter 

 have not themselves been regarded as fundamental standards, being 

 only copies of the imperial standards of Great Britain, in the case of 

 the yard, or descended from the same ancestry, as in the case of the 

 pound, and assumed to be the same. It thus appears that practically, 

 and until a very recent period, our whole system of length and mass 

 measurement was made to depend upon the imperial yard and pound 

 of Great Britain. 



The most important legislation upon this subject from the founding 



