526 Correspondence — Dr. H. J. Johnston-Lavis. 



METRICAL v. IMPERIAL STANDARDS. 



Sir, — It is to be regretted that the valuable space of the pages 

 of the Geol. Mag. are threatened by a discussion of the merits of 

 different systems of weights and measures. The question has been 

 threshed out in the "English Mechanic," photographic and other 

 journals quite recently. As one of those who use metrical measure- 

 ments in my communications to the three papers mentioned, would 

 you kindly allow me to explain my own reasons, which are probably 

 the same as those of the other culprits. As an Englishman, educated 

 in England, I have the greatest respect for most of her institutions 

 and systems; but I am not Jingoist enough (pardon the expression) 

 to extend my patriotic feelings to the irrational system of your 

 so-called Imperial Standards, which cost me many a caning and 

 numerous other miseries during my school-days. When I took 

 up my residence abroad, my mental conception of an inch and a 

 foot was fairly good ; but ells, furlongs, miles, gills, pints, gallons, 

 pecks, bushels, grains, scruples, drachms, and many other barbarous 

 units were always very hazy conceptions. My first initiation to 

 metrical measurements was the picture of a decimetre in Koscoe's 

 small chemistry book. I set myself to work for half an hour on 

 two or three occasions, and soon gained a clear mental estimate of 

 all metrical standards which years of patient labour and much 

 practice had failed to give me of Imperial standards. The great 

 point is that the measure of lengths, fluids, solids, with their relations 

 to specific gravity, temperature, coinage, etc., can be calculated in 

 a few seconds by an ordinary person, whilst the relationship of the 

 Imperial standards requires lengthy intricate calculations on paper 

 by a practised mind. So superior do I find the metrical system that 

 I now convert the data of any problem from English to a metrical 

 form, make my calculations, and reconvert the answer to English 

 form. 



The objections of the writer of the letter in last month's Geol. 

 Mag. are of the usual invalid kind. In the first place he seems to 

 think one must be a French scholar to understand metrical measure- 

 ments, whereas if any other than his own language is necessary, it 

 is Greek and Latin, as all the names of the weights and measures 

 are derived from them ; but I would ask if the writer of the letter 

 ever attempted to investigate the meanings of furlong, drachm, 

 scruple, carat, and other incomprehensible and useless denominations 

 of our Imperial standard units, whilst a most elementary knowledge 

 is sufficient to explain a decimetre, a milligramme, or a hectolitre. 

 The next error is to refer the use of the metrical system entirely 

 to the French — true it originated in the minds of French philoso- 

 phers and physicists, but it has long been very extensively adopted 

 by other countries. All said about Englishmen and English journals 

 is out of place, for the metrical system is recognized as legal 

 Standards by Act of the British Imperial Parliament, and it is only 

 our insular conservatism that makes us retain an old, cumbersome, 

 and even dangerous system of Standards not much superior to those 

 used from earliest historic times. If people wish to understand 



