430 Report on Weights and Measures. 



GAS, Gas, Salt, &c. that I have not suffered temper to influence 

 my judgement, but have done merited honour to the Doctor's re- 

 searches on every scientific occasion. 



I have the honour to be, sir, 



Your most obedient servant, 

 Glasgow, April 15, 1821. ANDREW Ube. 



LXXX. Report from the Select Committee of the House of 

 Commons, on Weights and Measures. With an Appendix. 



J. HE Select Committee appointed to consider of the several Re- 

 ports which have been laid before this House, relating to Weights 

 and Measures, and of the Proceedings which have taken place for 

 determining the Length of the Pendulum vibrating Seconds, and 

 to report their Observations and Opinion thereupon to the House ; 



Have considered the matters referred to them, and have agreed 



to the following Report : 



YOUR Committee concur entirely in opinion with the Com- 

 missioners on Weights and Measures, as to the inexpediency of 

 changing any standard, either of length, superficies, capacity, or 

 of weight, which already exists in a state of acknowledged accu- 

 racv; and where discrepancies are found between models equally 

 authentic, they deem it right that such a selection should be 

 made as will prove most accordant with generally received usage, 

 and with such analogies as may connect the different quantities 

 in the most simple ratios. 



They also concur in recommending, that the subdivisions of 

 weights and measures employed in this country be retained, as 

 being far better adapted to common practical purposes than the 

 decimal scale. 



For the reasons assigned by theCommissioners, your Committee 

 recommend that the Parliamentary brass standard of three feet, 

 now in the possession of the House of Commons, and made by 

 Bird in 1760, be henceforth considered as the authentic legal 

 Standard of Length of the British Empire, so that the distance 

 besween the centres of the two gold pins inserted in that scale, 

 the brass being at the temperature of sixty-two degrees by Fah- 

 renheit's thermometer, be one yard : And it appears from the 

 experiments made for determining the length of the Pendulum 

 vibrating seconds at London in a vacuum, and reduced to the 

 level of the sea, that the distance from the axis of suspension to 

 the centre of oscillation of such a Pendulum, is 3,9'1393 inches 

 of the above standard distance : and that the length of a platina 

 metre at the temperature of thirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit's 

 thermometer, supposed to be the ten-millionth part of the qua- 

 drant 



