WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



-L'l 



814 Piedmontese, 884 Portuguese, 909 Roman, 925 Spanish, 955 

 Swedish, 800 Venetian. 



The recent alteration, in the government of the medic*! profession 

 have produced proposals to alter the method of weighing medicine*. 

 A committee of the General Council of Medic*! Education has given a 

 recommendation to the following effect. The pound averdupoU is to 

 have iU ounce divided into drachms, scruple*, and grains, a* in the 

 present troy ounce. To effect this, a new grain U invented, being 

 !*1 145 of the prevent grain : and the pound is to be 7680 grains, u of 

 >ld. What purpoM this change can answer, or, supposing a purpose, 

 now it can bring benefit enough to counterbalance the alteration of the 

 grain in which all duses are now remembered, and all prescriptions 

 written, we cannot imagine. 



Artrdttpoii weigkl. The pound is 16 ounces, and the ounce 16 

 drams : the modern pound is 7000 grains (the same as the troy grains); 

 whence the dram is 27 grains and 1 l-82nds of a grain. The hundred- 

 weight is 112 pounds, and the ton 20 hundredweight The cubic foot 

 of water is 62-3210606 pounds averdupois. The stone * is the 8th part 

 of the hundredweight, or 14 pounds. The ton of shipping U not a 

 weight, but a measure, 42 cubic feet, holding 24 hundredweight of sea- 

 water. In Ufe oldest mentions which are made of haberdnpoit or artr* 

 dupoit, the word is not applied to weight, but to goods weighed. A 

 charter of Edward I. speaks, " de averis ponderis, et de aliis rebus 

 Bubtilibus ; " and no mention is made of averdupois ictiyht before the 

 time of Henry VIII. Wiogate (quoting Gerard Malynes, whose ' Lex 

 Mercatoria' was published in 1636) says that it serves to weigh " all 

 kind of grocery ware, as also butter, cheese, flesh, tallow, wax, and 

 every other thing which beareth the name of r/arbtl, and whereof 

 issueth a refuse or waste." To which the almanac of 1673, already 

 quoted, adds, "and therefore 112 Ibs. averd. is called a hundred- 



. .-!;'.." 



The old merchants' pound, which was 15 ounces [TROT], may have 

 been toe origin of the modern averdupois pound. Fleta says every- 

 thing was weighed by it except gold, silver, and drugs ; but it is to be 

 remembered that this does not mean that gold and silver were weighed 

 by troy weight ; for it is well known that, until a change was made by 

 Henry VIII. in 1527, gold and silver were weighed by the Tower 

 pound of 114 ounces. The modern averdupois pound is 14 ounces, 

 12 pennyweights, all but 8 grains troy. The standards of Elizabeth 

 agree tolerably weil with this ; but it U to be noticed that, unless we 

 suppose two averdupois pounds, one ancient and one modern, there is 

 much reason to doubt whether the averdupois pound was uniform. 

 I T. Kelly says, " The old commercial weight of England, which is still 

 retained in Scotland, is about one-twelfth heavier than averdupois, the 

 pound being 7600 grains troy .... this has been long the weight in 

 England by which the assize t of bread is fixed." Our suspicion is 

 this, that the old commercial pound, probably differing in different 

 places, though supposed to be uniform, gradually gained the name of 

 averdupois ; and that the standards deposited in the Exchequer in the 

 time of Elizabeth, which certainly do not agree with the arithmetical 

 writers of the same date, were probably derived either from thin old 

 merchants' pound of 15 ounces troy, or from a selection out of the 

 varying specimens of a pound derived from it. In the ' Pathway ' the 

 " pound haberdupois is |>arted into 16 ounces, every ounce 8 dragmes, 

 every dragme 3 scruples, every scruple 20 groins ; " giving 7680 grains 

 to the pound. This is the probable origin of the old pound which 

 Dr. Kelly mentions, and it happens to contain precisely the same 

 number of grains as the old statute $ pound before 32 grains took the 

 place of 24 in the pennyweight. And this shows the origin of apothe- 

 caries' weight : medicines were dispensed by this old subdivision of the 

 pound, and continued to be so after the pound of Elizabeth's standard 

 had supplanted the old one. It was then natural that this ounce, 

 drachm, and scruple, which were no aliquot parta of the new averdupois 

 pound, but which were aliquot parts of the pound 



referred by arithmeticians to the latter. 



troy, should be 

 Sir Jonas Moore, who had 



been surveyor-general of the Ordnance, and could hardly have failed to 

 be correctly informed, gives the same pound and subdivisions. Moore's 

 ' Arithmetic' was first published in 1650. Jeake, as late-aa 1674, gives 

 the same division and the same pound of 7680 grains ; and Harris, aa 

 late as 1716, does the same in the third edition of the ' Lexicon Techni- 

 cum.' Jeake gives several citations tending to show that there was no 

 universal agreement about the pound averdupois. Dalton (the lawyer) 

 and Malynes, he says, agree in making 56 Ibs. averd. equal to 67J Ibo. 

 troy (or 6942? grains to the pound averd.), but hath afterwards put 

 68 for 67J (which gives 0994} grains). Others, he continues, affirm 

 the pound averdupois to be 14 ounces 12 pennyweights troy (giving 



There were a great many different stone weight* : every one but that of 

 14 pound* U now illegal. 



f Abollihed in IBIS. 



J This circumstance and othen majr lead to the suspicion that the pound of 

 which we now apeak (being that which wu called averdupoU in the 16th 

 century) was in reality the old standard. In 1750 Mr. Reynardson publi.hed 

 a pamphlet, aastrtinf that the common averdupoU pound wa* the ancient 

 tandard, on other ground*. 



J Tb writers of book* might Invent a pound for thin measure, becaunc 

 medkiuea are not diipenaed by pounds, just aa they might coin blllloni, ti II- 

 lloaa, *c. "Ni MIATIOI>!, thoM number* being nercr uted. But the druggist* 

 continued to buy and tell wholesale by arerdupoU weight. 



7008 grains). The older writers hardly mention averdupoU weight : 

 Reoorde not at all ; Mrllis slightly, not subdividing the ounce. Hart- 

 well, an editor of Itecorde (1648), 



mentions this pound of 16 < 



and 7680 grains, divided aa above, and says it is used by apothecaries. 

 Oughtred, mentioning Qhetaldi's pound of 6912 grains, compare* it 

 only with the English troy pound, without mention of any other. All 

 this shows that, at the beginning of the 17th century, there was a 

 complete want of agreement as to what constituted averdupois weight, 

 M hii-li continued in some degree till the end. Nevertheless in (lie 

 middle of the century, Wyberd, who measured for himself, an i In 

 friend Reynolds (before mentioned), assert that the averdupoU p..,in.i 

 U to the troy aa 17 to 14 (which gives 6994) grains, agreeing with 

 Dalton and Malynes), though they say that the then common 

 was that the ratio was 73 to 60 (which gives 7008 grains). Moxon 

 (1679) gives as much as 7680 grains. Ward says that, by a very nice 

 experiment, he found 69994 grains. Arbuthnot, apparently meaning 

 to cite Greaves, but we cannot find the place, gives the ratio 175 to 

 144, or 6890) grains. Down to the statute of Geo. IV., the averdupois 

 pound varied a little, according to the notion of the writer : Dilworth 

 makes it 69994 grains ; Dr. Robert Smith, 7000 grains; Bonnycastie, 

 6999{$ grains. And even since that act came into operation, which 

 declares " that seven thousand such grains shall be, and they are 

 hereby declared to be, a pound avoirdupois," an editor of the last-named 

 writer will not obey the statute, but adds the 123rd part of a grain. 



Log meature. Three barleycorns make an inch, 12 inches a foot, 

 3 feet a yard, 54 yards a pole, perch,* or gad, 40 poles a furlong, 8 

 furlongs (1760 yardx) a mile. Also 2{ inches are a nail, 3 quarters of 

 a yard a Flemish ell, 5 quarters an English ell. 6 quarters a Ki viu-h 

 ell. A pace is 2 steps, or 5 feet ; a fathom u 6 feet. The CIIAI 

 yards, or 100 links : 10 chains make a furlong, and 80 chains a mile. 

 The barleycorn is now disused, and the inch is sometimes divided into 

 12 lines (as in France), but oftener into tenths or eighths. On .mi 

 older itinerary measures, see LEAGUE and MILE. The yard i 

 quently called an ell in old books ; commonly, Kecorde says. Mellis 

 says that both the yard and the ell were divided each into 16 nails. 

 A goad is an old name for a yard and a half. The hand (anciently 

 handful), used in measuring the height of horses, is fixed at 4 inches by 

 27 Henry VIII., cap. 6. The furlong is probably a corruption of forty- 

 long, from its forty poles : the old derivation, furrowloug, as long as a 

 furrow, seems to us to carry absurdity on the face of it The etymo- 

 logists of measures are not always fortunate ; Verstegan derives Troy 

 weight from Troynovant.t the mythological name for London 

 Jeako will have averdupois to be overdupois, because the pouml i- 

 greater than in troy weight ; while Moxon says the word means " l!a\. 

 your weight." 



Square Aftamtre. A square perch is 80$ square yards ; 40 square 

 perches are a rood (formerly also farthendele), 4 roods are an acre. The 

 acre is also ten square chains, or 4840 square yards. Four square 

 perches were anciently called a day's work. The rood * is the same 

 word as rod : Mellis says four rodt make an acre. The old terms which 

 have come down from ' Domesday Book ' at latest, the hide, plow- 

 land, carucate, and oxgang, are wholly unsettled aa to what magnitudes 

 they meant 



The cubic measures, or measures of capacity, do not immediately 

 depend upon the cubic foot, except in the case of timber. Forty 

 cubic feet of rough timber, or fifty feet of hewn timber, make a load. 



The preceding measures have been untouched by the act which 

 introduced the imperial measures. The old measures of capacity. > ! . 

 wine measure, ale and beer measure, and the dry measure, are now 

 replaced by the imperial measure. 



Old Dry or Curn Meature. The gallon is 26S-C cubic inches. Two 

 pints make a quart, 2 quarts a pottle, 2 potties a gallon, 2 gallons a 

 peck, 4 pecks a bushel, 2 bushels a strike, 2 strikes a comb or coomb, 

 2 coombs a quarter (eight bushels), 5 quarters a wey or load, and 2 

 weys a last. In measuring grain, the bushel U struck, that is, the 

 part which more than fills the measure is scraped off. Most other 

 goods were sold by heaped measure, or as much as could be laid on 

 the top of the measure was added. This heaped measure (which wae 

 supposed to give about a third more than the other) was at first 

 allowed in the imperial system, but has since been abolished. Coals, 

 which must now be sold by weight, were sold by the chaldron. 

 Three bushels make a sack,$ three sacks a vat, and four vats a 

 chaldron. 



There was anciently a dell, or half-bushel (also called a tnril), 

 which makes the binary character of this measure almost complete. 

 In the ' Pathway ' wo do not find the load or wey ,11 and the coomb is 



* In recent timei the word perch hai been almost confined to the square 

 perch. 



f Mr. Davlei Gilbert, in hi* evidence before the committee on weight* and 

 measures, declared for thii derivation. Lord Swinton derive* it from trait, 

 three ; observing that the money and the money weight have three denomina- 

 tions each penny, /"hilling, pound ; and pennyweight, ounce, pound. 



J Bod or rood merely mean* a piece of wood much longer than it is broad or 

 thick. Bo the word rood wa* frequently ued for the cross; and when Milton 

 says that Satan " lay floating many a rood," he 1* taking the length of his hero, 

 and not the ground which he covered. 



I In 1596 the sack wa* four bushels. 

 Moore make* six quarters, and Ward ten, in a wey. 



