328 DESCRIPTION or A new STANDARD 
ble many young d/ack oaks and fome white oaks from 
twelve feet high and under are dead, in bleak places. | 
Saye, Rue, Lavender, Prickley pears, Southern wood 
and Silk gra/s (a fpecies of the Aloes) are dead to the roots. 
Comfrey roots and Parfley are much damaged, and the 
Catauba tree is killed inall its {maller branches. Two 
thirds of the Wheat.and Rye in our country are loft, and 
Hoar hound, which.generally grows all winter, is deftroyed. 
In the falt marfhes I found the large triangular gra/fs 
and the dent gra/s generally dead from the roots. The 
marfh at prefent (June). looks red and feems rotten. 
TN*.. XX XIX, 
A Defeription of a new Standard for Weights and Mea-= 
fures, (in a Letter from Mr. Joun Cooke, of Tipperary 
in Ireland, to THOMAS JEFFERSON, Esq. 
Dated Mar. ELE want of uniformity in weights and mea= 
ee okt {ures is a fubject of general complaint at 
prefent; it is an infinite fource of fraud, and the great 
obftacle to. domeftic and foreign commerce. 
The firft ftep neceflary to remove this evil, is to appoint 
an univerfal, perpetual, and immutable ftandard, for length, 
fuperficies, weight, and capacity ; whereby the inftruments 
of meafurement may be adjufted, and alio whereby they 
may be defcribed to diftant countries,.and:to future ages. 
Natural fubftances are incapable of furnifhing one of 
this defcription. Every thing in the material world is in 
a ftate of gradual alteration, it differs from itfelf under dif- 
ferent circumftances, and differs from every individual of 
the fame {pecies. 
General 
