90 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. SECT. XII. 



facility than the metre. But, as no measure is mathematically 

 exact, an error in the original standard may at length become 

 sensible in measuring a great extent, whereas the error that 

 must necessarily arise in measuring the quadrant of the meridian 

 (N. 155) is rendered.tofally insensible by subdivision in taking its 

 ten-millionth part. The French have adopted the decimal divi- 

 sion, not only in time, but also in their degrees, weights, and 

 measures, on account of the very great facility it affords in com- 

 putation. It has not been adopted by any other country, though 

 nothing is more desirable than that all nations should concur 

 in using the same standards, not only on account of convenience, 

 but as affording a more definite idea of quantity. It is singular 

 that the decimal division of the day, of space, weights, and 

 measures, was employed in China 4000 years ago ; and that at 

 the time Ibn Junis made his observations at Cairo, about the 

 year 1000 of the Christian era, the Arabs were in the habit of 

 employing the vibrations of the pendulum in their astronomical 

 observations as a measure of time. 



