Metrical System of Measurement i o i 



(President of the Club on that evening) was superintendent 

 of the tea nurseries." x 



Whether English naturalists should make use of the 

 French system of linear measurement was discussed at the 

 fourth meeting (June I7th), since the ' line ' now employed 

 by them was not small enough for all purposes, and was 

 regarded by some as a tenth of an inch, by others as a 

 twelfth. The adoption of the former value was proposed, 

 but it was felt that even then the inch was not the decimal 

 part of a foot, and neither of these corresponded with a 

 Continental unit. The French metrical system had this 

 recommendation, that it was equally favourable to large 

 or small measurements. A change to that received strong 

 support, though the difficulties it would involve were ad- 

 mitted, and the real question felt to be whether these were 

 outweighed by the advantages. It was ultimately resolved 

 that Mr. Owen, who had introduced the subject, should be 

 requested to bring it up at the forthcoming meeting of 

 the British Association at Oxford. 



Mr. Grove mentioned on October 28th a phenomenon 

 which he had observed but had not found noticed in any 

 treatise on Optics. A small object, if held very close to 

 the eye, is not visible, but, if a convex lens or compound 

 microscope be placed on its further side, it can then be 

 seen magnified with a tolerably clear definition. This was 

 confirmed by Dr. Miller, 2 who attributed the result to the 

 parallelism of the rays of light which had passed through 

 the lens, though he also was unable to recollect any mention 

 of the fact in print. Mr. Grove said he thought it might 

 have useful applications, such as detecting defects in lenses. 



1848. Sir Snow Harris enquired at the ninth meeting of 

 the Club (Feb. 24th) what evidence there was of the earth 



1 According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Dr. Falconer 

 superintended the first cultivation of Indian tea in 1834, while Keeper 

 of the Botanic Garden at Saharanpur, and in that year the plant was 

 discovered growing wild in Upper Assam and cultivated in 1835 near 

 Luckimpur, to the north of the Brahmaputra. 



2 Both W. A. Miller and W. H. Miller were present at the dinner, 

 but the latter is much more likely to have made the remark. 



