ON THE UNIFORMITY OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



105 



Gutch's 'Literary and Scientific Eegister' for 1864* contains a useful 

 comparison of metric and English, measures, compiled by Mr. "Warren De 

 la Eue, F.R.S., in which the different quantities of the metric system are 

 expressed in their English equivalents, and the value of several important 

 English weights and measures is given in the terms of the metric system. 



Until comparative tables of the English and metric systems had been 

 published, the labour of converting English weights and measures into the 

 metric system was so excessive, that when communications to scientific 

 societies were published in England, with merely British weights and 

 measures, such papers were frequently not translated in foreign countries, and 

 the labours of the Englishman of science were consequently not appreciated 

 beyond the limits of Anglo-Saxon dominions. 



Practical inconvenience was felt, during the negotiation of the commereia 

 treaty between Erance and England, on accoiuit of the English inch not being 

 at that time usually divided, except into quarters and eighths. 



Mr. Ogilvie, Surveyor General of the Custom House in London, who assisted 

 Mr. Cobden in the Erench treaty, found the advantage of the minute subdi- 

 visions of Erench measui-es, such as the millimetre, which is one-third less than 

 one-sixteenth of an inch, and is the one-thousandth part of the metre. 



Erench workmen are familiar with the millimetre as a unit of width, and 

 as especially useful with reference to plates of iron or other materials. Duties 

 had to be calculated for the treaty on rolled iron, in cases where the work of 

 rolling increased the value of the iron, and where a slight diminution of width 

 was of great importance. 



The following diagram, from Glitch's ' Scientific Eegister,' wUl show the 

 minute subdivision of the millimetre, and will also exhibit the near approxi- 

 mation of 100 miUimetres to 4 inches. 



COJIPARISON OF ENGLISH AND METEIC MEASUEEMENT. 



Scale of fovir inches. 



I 1 



10 



20 



30 



40 



50 



60 



80 



90 



100 



Mr. J. Mumford, Master of the British School at Highgate, recommends 

 decimals to be placed immediately after numeration in the ordinary arith- 

 metic-books, instead of being put after compound interest and other difficult 

 rules. The children in schools, who usually follow the order of subjects in 

 an arithmetic-book, would thus learn decimals at an earlier period of their 

 education. 



So much time is occupied in schools in committing to memory the various 

 tables of English weights and measures, and in working examples of com- 

 pound addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, that Mr. James 

 Yates is of opinion that a year would be saved in the education of boys. 



* Published by B. Blake, 421 Strand, London. 



