METRIC SYSTF.Nf. 



493 



. 11 districts, 00 circuit*, 



'1 ini-i-i.ms, 150 preachers, and 24,064 



I; 7 circuits and stations, 



:i'2 raombers in Ireland; 90 



s and 8,028 members in Canada. 



;i total decrease of 233 of the 



[' tlii-i Church; that of China 



\v.ir I860, specially sacccssfal. 



.ristinns had, in 1866, 87 cir- 



is in England, and 58 



1; with '_T> itinerant preachers, 1,691 



hers; 25,138 members; 1,050 on 



trial; 89,249 scholars ; and 8,272 teachers. 



The minutes of the 47th Annual Conference 

 of tho Primitive Methodist Connection, held 

 in 1866, state that there are 880 travelling 

 hers, male and female; 2,992 connec- 

 tional chapels; 8,183 rented chapels, etc., and 

 l.".lj:}8 members; 2,835 Sunday-schools; 227,- 

 476 scholars, including tho homo and foreign 

 missions. 



The " United Methodists " numbered, in 1866, 

 65,757 members (including foreign missions); 

 chapels, 1,140; itinerant preachers, 283; local 

 preachers, 3,281 ; Sunday scholars, 134,362. 



Tho Methodist bodies in Great Britain and 

 tho British possessions of North America are 

 eagerly canvassing the subject of union. In 

 Great Britain, the main branch of Methodists, 

 the "Wesleyan Connection, this year, for the first 

 time, took action on the subject. In reply to 

 an overture from the Conference of the Method- 

 ist New Connection, the Conference expressed 

 a desire, in all ways that are open, to promote a 

 fraternal feeling. They declared themselves 

 unable to offer any suggestions for the organic 

 union of tho two Connections, but at tho same 

 time expressed their readiness to give their full 

 attention to any proposals the New Connection 

 Conference might be prepared to offer. 



In the British possessions of America most 

 of the Methodist bodies have declared them- 

 selves in favor of uniting in one General Con- 

 ference for all British America. 



METRIC SYSTEM, THE. In intercourse 

 with foreign nations, as well as in our internal 

 commerce, the great diversity of weights and 

 measures in use has been tho occasion of much 

 difficulty and confusion. These weights and 

 measures were not based on any common 

 standard, and the foot, the acre, the mile, the 

 ell, the yard, the bushel, the gallon, tho pound, 

 the stone, and the quarter, varied in quantity 

 with each nation, and in Great Britain, Franco, 

 and Germany, with almost every province or 

 county. An English foot, a Paris foot, and a 

 German foot differed by several inches ; a Ger- 

 man mile in length was about four times an 

 English one, and the Irish and Swedish miles 

 (littered from either. 



Those perplexing variations in weights and 

 measures produced so much annoyance in 

 Franco that, in 1791, a body of savantt were 

 charged with tho production of a permanent 

 and uniform system of weights and measures, 

 which should be made the standard for Franco. 



Their investigations wore delayed by tho po- 

 litical condition of tho country, but in Jane 

 1799, they finally settled upon tho units of 

 measure for length and weight, and developed 

 from them the complete METRIC SYSTEM. It 

 \va> desirable that tho unit pf length should be 

 derived from some permanent and absolute 

 measure of length, in which, when once ascer- 

 tained, thcro could be 110 possible variation. 

 The foot, tho existing unit of length, was a 

 very variable quantity, and there could be no 

 abioluto standard for it. It was based upon 

 tho average length of tho human foot of an 

 adult male ; but this was a measure of length 

 which in tho nature of the case could never be 

 absolutely exact The French savants, after 

 considering and rejecting numerous other offered 

 units of length, finally agreed to deduce ono 

 from the circumference of the earth. To ob- 

 tain this, they measured an arc of meridian in 

 several directions, and comparing these meas- 

 urements with those of other astronomers and 

 hydrographers, deduced thence the distance 

 from the pole to the equator, or one-fourth pf 

 the earth's circumference. Dividing this dis 

 tance from the pole to the equator by ten 

 millions, they obtained the unit which they 

 sought, and gave it the name of METEB, or 

 measure. 



It must be obvious to every intelligent mind 

 that if this measurement of the quadrant of 

 meridian was accurately made, it furnished a 

 measurement absolutely perfect, and admitting 

 of no variation either from contraction or ex- 

 pansion. There is, however, some reason to 

 believe that there was not entire accuracy in 

 the admeasurement of arcs of the meridian 

 from which this length of the quadrant of the 

 earth's circumference was based. Sir John 

 Herschel, one of the highest authorities living 

 on this question, insists, in a paper recently 

 published, that there was a serious inaccuracy 

 in the calculation of the length of these area 

 of meridian, and opposes, on this ground, tho 

 introduction of the metric system into Great 

 Britain to the exclusion of the so-called " impe- 

 rial " system. We cannot see, however, that, 

 except in astronomical and geodesic or hydro- 

 graphic questions, there can be any just objection 

 on this ground. Whether correctly or incor- 

 rectly, as relates to the actual length of a lino 

 bounding tho earth's circumference, the length 

 of the meter has been assumed as a fixed quan- 

 tity, and the standard measures which represent 

 that unit of length have been made of such 

 metals, or combinations of metal, as do not vary 

 in length from the influence of moderate heat 

 or cold, and having been definitely determined, 

 its multiples and subdivisions are equally fixed 

 and absolute. 



From this unit of length, the meter, all the 

 other measures, of surfaces, of solids, of liquids, 

 and of weights, are derived. 



Thus, the unit of measures of surface or land 

 measures is the are, from the Latin area, and is 

 tlw square of ten meters, or, in other words, 



