42O THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



the better it would be for the character of the work they produce ; 

 and I cannot sympathise with the benevolent desire to save them 

 the trouble of becoming familiarised with a national gauge. I 

 venture to assert, on the contrary, that the greatest merit of any 

 system of measurement is its capability of approaching high 

 standards of accuracy, and of conveying in its units the most 

 definite conception of quantity ; and this certainly cannot be said 

 of a wire gauge, the numbers of which coincide with no definite 

 units, either of diameter or sectional area, and are supposed to be 

 verified by the rough and ready method of passing the wire 

 through the corresponding notch of a gauge plate, which can only 

 be expected to be accurate after allowing for a considerable margin 

 of error. 



The objections to the Board of Trade gauge are already making 

 their appearance, and I observe that the American Ohio Auxiliary 

 Society recommend, at the suggestion of one of their members, 

 Mr. Davies, a modification of the Whitworth gauge for general 

 adoption in America. The same influential body have advocated 

 for some years the measuring of dry goods by weight, instead of 

 by the most uncertain measure, the bushel, and this very rational 

 advance toward accuracy has actually been adopted by the Cleve- 

 land Board of Trade. There would be great danger, therefore, in 

 my opinion, that the adoption of the new wire gauge in this 

 country will not only place our system of measures at variance 

 with those of the continental nations of Europe, but that the 

 .United States will also separate from us on this question, and 

 raise another impediment to the importation of British wire and 

 sheets, we thus aiding the protectionists of that country by 

 supplying them with an objection against the introduction of 

 English goods. 



The desire for the introduction of a national system of measure- 

 ment of universal application, has given rise to the assembly of an 

 International Geodetic Congress, which met last month' at Rome. 

 The conclusions arrived at by this Congress, at which England 

 was officially represented, are of a very important character. The 

 second resolution is to the effect, " That the Conference propose 

 to the Governments to choose for their initial meridian that of 

 Greenwich, inasmuch as that meridian fulfils, as a point of 

 departure of longitudes, all the conditions required by science ; 



