December 2, 1922] 



NA TURE 



735 



By the courtesy of the Editor I have read Mr. 

 Richards's letter, and think that he and I disagree 

 solely by reason of the difference in our Indian 

 experiences. If it were a case of starting with a 

 clean sheet there would be no greater difficulty in 

 adopting the metric system than in adopting any 

 other ; but this is not the case. The British yard 

 has become very widely known, whereas the metre is 

 quite unknown. The Peshawari yard and the Ilahi 

 gaz, themselves variable units, are used only to a 

 comparatively small extent, while the most widely 

 known unit of length, the hath or cubit, is very near 

 to half the British yard, and as a matter of practical 

 fact this measure is regarded as representing it 

 exactlv. 



Similarly, the acre has now become very widely 

 recognised and used as a unit of area, while the 

 hectare has scarcely even been heard of. 



It is true that the 8o-tola seer (of 14,400 grains) 

 is near the kilogram, but it is not exactly equal 

 thereto, and to change it would, as a matter of 

 practical fact, involve altering the weight of the 

 rupee, as that coin is universally recognised as 

 representing in weight 1 tola. This question of chang- 

 ing the weight of the rupee so as to give a seer of 

 exactly two pounds, or else of I kilo, was one that 

 the Weights and Measures Committee considered 

 very carefully and on which it recorded much 

 evidence, and (the majority of the members) re- 

 luctantly came to the conclusion that any alteration 

 — whether in weight or value — of that coin would 

 give rise to so much suspicion as to make it more 

 than doubtful whether such a change would be worth 

 while. 



It has taken fifty years to spread the knowledge 

 of the 80-tola seer to the extent now achieved ; to 

 introduce a new unit would mean starting all over 

 again, and the same remark applies to any change 

 in the units of length or area. 



I have no doubt that engineers would prefer the 

 metric system — so would I, personally. But the 

 people of India are not engineers. Ninety per cent, of 

 them live in villages or small towns of less than 5000 

 inhabitants, and are only interested in weights and 

 measures being true and uniform within the limited 

 range of their journeyings. For one transaction 

 in which it would be an advantage to use a world- 

 wide system, there must be at least 10,000 in which 

 it would be of not the slightest advantage. 



Mr. Richards refers to Canada. I imagine that it 

 would be difficult to find two peoples more absolutely 

 different than those of Canada and of India ; the 

 Canadian is well educated and progressive, the 

 Indian, as a rule, very poorly educated, and intensely 

 conservative. It would be difficult to conceive of 

 widespread lecturing on weights and measures in 

 India ; audiences might perhaps be secured in half a 

 dozen of the largest towns, but nowhere else, and the 

 population of India is more than thirty times that of 

 Canada. (I do not wish to imply that Mr. Richards 

 thinks lecturing advisable, but merely to emphasise 

 the difference between the two countries.) 



My own experience of India at the time of the 

 Weights and Measures Committee w T as twenty years 

 in the Civil Service, all on the executive side, in the 

 course of which I usually spent four to six months 

 every year on tour among the villages and small 

 towns of my district ; that of my Indian colleague 

 on the Committee (who shared my views, with very 

 insignificant exceptions) was very similar. With 

 this experience we disagreed from our other member, 

 and held that there were not sufficient advantages 

 attached to the metric or other non-Indian system 

 to justify us in making a recommendation which, if 

 accepted, would affect the method of carrying out 



NO. 2770, VOL. I ioj 



an enormous number of petty transactions, and could 

 be given practical effect only by a large amount 

 of interference. Now interference of such a kind as 

 would be required to enforce the use of a new system 

 of weights and measures means interference by a 

 large and therefore necessarily low-paid staff, and 

 what that means any one with Indian executive 

 experience knows, for though the head of the Indian 

 Government colossus may be golden, its feet are very 

 certainly still decidedly argillaceous ! 



In brief, we found a very general desire for a uni- 

 form system of weights and measures, but for one 

 based on a unit that was known, and hence we 

 recommended that system which could be adopted 

 ■with very much less difficulty than any other. 



C. A. SlLBERRAD, 



President Indian Weights and Measures 

 Committee, 1913-14. 



Harpoons under Peat in Holderness, Yorks. 



On page 481 of Nature for October 7, Mr. O. G. S. 

 Crawford states that he believes one of the alleged 

 harpoons said to have been found under the peat 

 in Holderness to be genuine. At the Hull Meeting 

 of the British Association he thought that both were 

 genuine. After the spade-work to which he refers, 

 I feel satisfied that he will consider both of them 

 are modern. I am also glad to learn that he now 

 regards the evidence supplied by the flint axe to be 

 of no value, whereas formerly he considered that it 

 helped to prove the great age of the harpoons. 



As one who knows Holderness fairly well, I should 

 like to ask what evidence there is for the statement 

 that " There can be little doubt that in Holderness 

 exist remains of the early neolithic age, remains 

 which are older than the Long Barrows " ? At Hull 

 we were promised that a committee should be formed 

 to inquire into the question of the harpoons. I have 

 heard nothing further about it, but trust such a 

 committee may be called together. 



If I have cast doubts upon the authenticity of 

 implements which have been accepted as genuine 

 by quite a number of authorities, and my doubts 

 prove to be unfounded, I deserve censure. If, 

 however, the statement I made proves to be correct, 

 the facts should be published, in the interests of 

 truth. 



Reasons for my belief are given in a communication 

 which I sent to the Editor of Man a little while ago, 

 as Mr. Armstrong's illustrated description of the 

 harpoons first appeared in that journal. I do not 

 remember having made the statement in public that 

 the harpoons had been " made by the supposed 

 finder." I did say they were not as old as Mr. 

 Armstrong. T. Sheppard. 



The Museum, Hull. 



The Relationship between the common Hermit- 

 crab (Eupagurus bernhardus) and the Anemone 

 {Sagartia parasitica). 



The relationship between the common hermit-crab 

 [Eupagurus bernhardus) and its messmate anemone 

 Calliactis (Sagartia) parasitica has long been a subject 

 of much conjecture, owing largely, the present writer 

 thinks, to the unnatural figures of these animals in 

 all the text-books and most popular books — derived 

 probably from old and abnormal aquarium specimens. 

 In most figures purporting to show the relationship 

 of these animals, the anemone is shown with its 

 tentacles beautifully expanded and the mouth region 

 facing upwards away from the ground, and generally 



