31.2 REPORT— 1869. 



measures for rendering the use of the Metric System not only legal but com- 

 pulsory, at the earliest practicable period, throughout the United Kingdom 

 and as many as possible of its dependencies." 



The Scottish Chamber of Agriculture have deliberated on the subject of the 

 grievance of having so many weights and measiu'es in use. Grain is some- 

 where sold by the quarter or bushel, and elsewhere it is weighed and sold by 

 the cental or other weight. The practice differs in every county, nay in every 

 market, in the United Kingdom. The "Royal Commissioners further urge, as 

 a reason against the immediate complete introduction of the Metric System, 

 that there are nearly thirty millions of ordinary weights and measures of the 

 existing Imperial System now in common use. But how many of these are 

 altogether unreliable ? And is the temporary inconvenience of having to 

 substitute new weights and measures to be considered a sufficient reason for 

 delaying a reform of such importance to the trade and interests of the empire? 

 The example of France and all countries where the Metric System has been 

 introduced points out that it is necessary, in order to facilitate the change, to 

 indicate a time when the introduction of the change must be effective, and 

 your Committee hope that when Her Majesty's Government bring forward a 

 Bill on the sxibject, the Legislature v>'ill see the necessity of providing that 

 after a definite time the concurrent use of the Imperial and Metric Systems 

 shall cease, and the Metric be finally adopted as the new Imperial System of 

 weights and measures in the United Kingdom. 



Your Committee have ahready observed that the Royal Commissioners re- 

 commended that the Metric Standards should be accurately verified in relation 

 to the primary Metric Standards at Paris. These standards are a platinum 

 metre and kilogram, deposited at the Palais des Archives in 1793. But it 

 is not by these that new standards are now made. A copy of these standards 

 was made at the same time to save the original standards, and for the pur- 

 pose of verifying the Metric Standards of foreign countries where the Metric 

 System is adopted ; and this copy was first deposited at the Observatoire, 

 and afterwards, in 1S4S, transferred to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. 

 The practice, therefore, is to verify any new standard by that copj', which, 

 notwithstanding the lapse of time, differs very little from the standard 

 of the Archives. It is objected, however, to such a practice, first, that it is 

 inconvenient in all cases to resort to Paris for such verification ; second, that 

 if each country prepares its own standards and in its own way these will be 

 found to differ from one another, and there may be not one but many metres; 

 and, third, that the standards themselves are not complete. Upon this sub- 

 ject your Committee liave recently received a Report of a Committee of the 

 Physico-Mathematical Department of the Academy of Sciences of St. Peters- 

 burg, recommending that the different States should be invited to nominate 

 an International Commission for the purpose of preparing prototype standards 

 of the metre, and so create a unit of measure truly universal and effectively 

 international. Your Committee are glad to hear that M. de Jacobi, to whose 

 able pen we owe the valuable Repoi-t issued by the Committee of Weights and 

 Measures for the International Conference in 1867, Avill be present at this 

 Meeting to advocate this suggestion. The mode of obtaining a correct stan- 

 dard is a question of administration which may be safely left to the Warden 

 of the Standards ; yet your Committee are of ojiinion that the Commission thus 

 suggested may prove most beneficial, especially in endeavouring to correct 

 any small scientific defects in the system itself, and in the weights and mea- 

 sures separately in connexion with it. Your Committee are hajjpy in re- 

 porting that the Mural Standard, made under their direction, of the iletre 



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