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department of the Board of Trade, now called the Standards 

 Department, and appointing a staff of officials to carry it on. 

 The Commission, which was appointed to inquire into the 

 matter, consisted of G. B. Airy (Astronomer Eoyal), chairman ; 

 Lord Colchester, Eight Hon. S. Cave, M.P., Sir J. G. S. 

 Lefevre, K.C.B., the President of the Eoyal Society (General 

 Sabine), the Master of the Mint (Professor Graham), Pro- 

 fessor W. H. Miller, P.E.S., and the Warden of the Standards 

 (then Mr. Chisholm). 



They carried on their labours for three years, and on July 

 30th, 1870, handed in their fifth and final report, bearing date 

 1871. This comprehensive report embodies the results of the 

 work of the Commission during those three years, and is itself 

 the basis upon which the Imperial Weights and Measures Act, 

 of 1878, was constructed, and is, indeed, the foundation upon 

 which the law relating to weights and measures of all British 

 dependencies is constructed. Our Act, of 1885, just passed, is 

 in all the technical detail entirely based on it. So are the 

 Victorian, Canadian, and other Acts. It is from this source 

 that much of the information for this paper is drawn. 



"With reference to extreme accuracy of measurement and the 

 carrying of such refinements to a degree that practical people 

 might consider an extreme, we have an example in the Prench sys- 

 tem. Prench technical departments are distinguished for their 

 tendency to carry on these "refinements of science," and their 

 attendant theories. This tendency has borne magnificent fruit 

 in the shape of the Metric system, and this not only of a scien- 

 tific but of an eminently practical nature. There is little doubt 

 that within the next few years the Metric system will have 

 made great strides, as it has done within the last five or six 

 years. An International Metric Bureau sits in Paris in 

 September of every year, at which questions concerning the 

 introduction of the metric system throughout the world are 

 discussed, as also other questions of weights and measures. 

 This system is legalised in England and the United States, and 

 is in force in Germany, Eussia, Prance, and numerous other 

 parts of the world. 



The state of the British Standards in 175S is an illustration 

 of the looseness and irregularity resulting from an uncertain 

 system and imperfect supervision. They were compared by 

 Mr. Harris, then Master of the Mint, having at that time been 

 in use for 170 years. This was simply a comparison of one 

 with another, and had no reference to any fixed or primary 

 standard, such a thing being at that time without form and 

 void. " It was found that such wide discrepancies existed 

 when one standard was compared with another in whatever 

 way they were tried that the operators immediately turned 



