LXXXIV ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
one already? or, if it comes to this, that we “ must ” adopt it, why is 
it not made to “square” in some reasonable manner with our existing 
measures ? 
A “natural” base for a unit of length was urged by Sir Christopher 
Wren. Had he only been able to discover one, he would have been the 
world’s benefactor. An international Conference in 1799, recommended 
the metrical system, which was decimal throughout. And here is a 
fallacy; the decimal way of computation has proved itself extremely 
useful; and the “ metrical” advocates take all the credit there is in 
decimals for their own. The dispute is largely a matter of opinion. We 
shall probably never get into the way of reckoning eggs by the hundred 
or thousand, but always by the dozen. The British shilling is a very 
good unit, even if it is composed of twelve pence. And a compromise 
of using the foot or yard (and the pound for weight) decimally would 
be an improvement in some directions. But the metre—39.37077 
inches—cau never be made to synchronize, so to speak, with the well- 
known “ yard.” 
A learned friend in New Zealand, R. Coupland Harding, editor of 
one of the leading papers of Australasia, in Wellington, New Zealand, 
writes me as follows :— 
I note a reference to Sir Sandford Fleming—of electric cable fame 
—in your letter. From the second annual report of the British Weights 
and Measures Association I see that he has lately taken up a subject in 
which I am interested—the international weights and measures problem. 
Also, that he has done so to some purpose. I believe that the suggestion 
he has made will prove the only solution of the problem, and that it 
will ultimately be adopted—the alteration of the standard metre, an 
utterly random length, altogether without significance, from 39.38 
inches (approximately) to 40 inches, which would not only co-ordinate 
all the ancient European systems with the metric decimal scheme, but 
with all the measures of the Bible as well, so far as they are based on 
the sacred cubit of 25 inches. I think this will be the solution, for all 
the great standardisings—of screws, of optic lenses, of textiles, of 
printers’ types, etc., are to fractions of the inch, and cannot now be 
changed; nor has the most arbitary metric Government ventured to 
interfere with sea-measurements and soundings—the cost in wrecks and 
loss of life would be too great. It is a fact that something like Sir 
Sandford’s scheme is quietly adopted on the Continent. Lenses, for — 
example, are catalogued and sold (for the law so compels) by nominal 
metric measurements, but, they are really made to inch-scale, as mea- 
surements prove—in fact, they would be useless otherwise. 
