23 



imperial bushel 58^, tlie difference between the two measures is not 10 pounds, 

 but 5.66+ pounds. As all the argument is based on this mistaken calculation, 

 and falls with it, there is no necessity for directly refuting it. 



" It appears probable that the English wheat bushel is not the imperial bushel 

 at all, but simply an independent measurement, which has come into use from 

 the practice of selling wheat by the quarter, and the convenience of having a 

 measurement of even bushels corresponding with the weight. Whether, in 

 practice, they have a measure of this capacity, or attain the object by heaping 

 the imperial bushel, must be determined by some one acquainted with the facts 

 in the case. 



Yours, truly, C. W. ATKINSON." 



P. S. — It might be well to notice that there is scarcely a possibility that the 

 imperial bushel is ever rated at 70 pounds, inasmuch as the heaviest weight 

 assigned to the Winchester bushel is 60 pounds, and the imperial bushel is only 

 ^2 larger, making, at the highest estimate, less than 62 pounds, actual weight. 

 (Your new volume, just issued, is read with great favor.) A." 



Comments. — And yet Webster, in his definition of the word quarter, says, " it 

 is a quarter of a ton in weight" — which is 560 pounds — and that "it is eight 

 bushels of grain." No conclusion, then, is more certain than that the English 

 bushel is 70 pounds, if he is correct in this definition. 



In Mr. Woolhouse's book on measures, weights, and moneys, printed in Lon- 

 don, the tables are given of troy and avoirdupois weights. In the first, one 

 ounce is 480 grains ; in the second, it is 437^ grains. The troy pound is 5,760 

 grains; the avoirdupois pound, 7,000 grains. Between these tables, the aiithor 

 says: "The imperial standard potuid troy, made in the year 1758, is that from 

 which all other weights are obtained, so that 5,760 grains is a troy pound, and 

 7,000 suck grains is a pound avoirdupois, the grain in each case being identical^ 

 Of course, then, the latter pound is 21.53 per cent, greater than the former. 

 Fix the W^inchester bushel at what we may, the imperial is this much greater 

 according to this authority. His declaration, we suppose, is founded on the 

 effect of the act of Parliament passed June 17, 1824, which went into operation 

 January 1, 1826. In the abstract of that act, speaking of the standard fixed 

 by it for ascertaining the Aveight by distilled water of a fixed temperature, he 

 says : " Such cubic inch of water is equal to 252.458 grains, the standard troy 

 potmd being 5,760 such grains, and the avoirdupois 7,000 such grains." 



This act, because it was not radical, but confounded what was already a per- 

 plexity, from the multifarious weights and measures of Great Britain. In 1838, 

 Parliament sought to again legislate on the subject, and appointed a commission, 

 which reported in favor of the decimal system. But the measures proposed by 

 it, being radical, created such an opposition that no reform has yet been made . 

 If any one is curious to see what British Aveights and measures are, we gratify 

 his laudable, and we hope it will prove a useful, curiosity, by the follo\s'ing extract 

 from a recent article written by an Englishman. If he can learn from it what 

 an English bushel of wheat is, he is clearer-sighted than we are. 



"If we buy a bushel of wheat at Bridgend, we get 168 pounds; at Darling- 

 ton, 73^ ; at Worcester, 62 ; at Monmouth, 80 ; at Shrewsbury, 75 ; at Wol- 

 verhampton, 72 ; at Manchester, 00 or 70, according to whether we are dealing 

 in English or American ivheat ; at Newcastle, 63 ; at Oaermarthen, 64." 



We have italicised what is significant to the controversy on hand. 



And here Ave leaA^e the matter, asking Congress to look at this inextricable 

 difiiculty of the English, that it may save this country from a like one. Our 

 many State legislatures are now fixing the Aveights and measures of the country, 

 and each differing from the other, and each constantly changing its acts. The 

 English are agreed that if existing Aveights and measures could be abolished. 



