Keportfrom the Select Committee on Weights and Measures. 171 



these the juices are all collected to form the pabulum. The 

 smallest veins of a leaf are larger than the veins and arteries of 

 a mite, and what use does not nature make of all those ! 



Fig. 24 and 25 will give an idea of the means used to in- 

 crease the given moisture to young leaves : 24, is the edge of 

 an old and young leaf: it is not only increased to the young 

 one in an amazing quantity of hairs, but an additional piece {hh) 

 is formed, and added to the leaf (quite as large as the leaf is 

 broad) to give an increase of moisture. No words I can make 

 use of will paint the extreme difference between the old and 

 young leaves of most plants ; they must be examined to prove 

 this truth. In the birch, for example, they are not in the least 

 alike either in shape, size, texture, or edge. 



25 is the increase of the edge of one of the idenea in a young 

 leaf, which in the old one ends by being a plain scollop with 

 points, and no hairs. 



Fig. 20, 21, 22, 23, and 16 are the dissection of the evergreen 

 leaf. 



XXVIII. Report from the Select Committee on Weights and 

 Pleasures. Ordered by the House of Commons to he printed^ 

 July \, 1S14. 



JL.OUR committee, in the first place, proceeded to inquire what 

 measures had been taken to estabHsh uniform weights and mea- 

 jsures throughout' the kingdom. They found that this subject 

 had engaged the attention of parliament at a verv early period. 

 The statute book from the time of Henry the Third abounds 

 with acts of parliament enacting and declaring that there should 

 be one uniform weight and measure throughout the realm ; and 

 every act complains that the preceding statutes had been inef- 

 fectual, and that the laws were disobeyed. 



The select committee of the house of commons, which was 

 appointed in the year 1758 to inquire into the original standards 

 of weights and measures in this kingdom, and to consider the 

 laws relating thereto, made a very elaborate Report on this sub- 

 ject, in which is contained all the information that is necessary 

 with regard to the inquiry into what were the original standards 

 of weights and measures*: such parts of that Report as have ap- 

 peared to your committee to be most important, are inserted in 

 the Appendix to this Report. 



The committee of 1758 first give an abridged state of the 

 several statutes which have been enacted relating to weiglits and 

 measures : 1st, so far as they establish any weights or measures, 

 •r standards for the same ; and 2d, so far as any means, checks, 



or 



