380 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1449 



tative on the approval of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury which it received on April 3, 1893. 



The "ibuU's eye" of that announcement is 

 found in 'the following sentence: "In view of 

 these facts and the absence of any material 

 normal standards of customary weights and 

 measures, the office of weights and measures, 

 with the approval of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, will in the future, regard the inter- 

 national prototype metre and kilogramme as 

 fundamental standards, and the customary 

 units, the yard and the pound, will he derived 

 therefrom in accordance with the Act of July 

 28, 1866." 



Mr. Stutz in his testimony before the com- 

 mittee quotes this sentence several times, re- 

 ferring to the last phrase, "in accordance with 

 the Act of July 28, 1866," as evidence that the 

 metre and kilogramme are not thus made fun- 

 damental units but are to be considered as de- 

 pendent upon the inch and the pound, accord- 

 ing to his personal interpretation of the Act 

 of 1866. But by some unhappy chance, by 

 accident or otherwise, he has invariably omit- 

 ted the Avords italicised above, "the customary 

 units, the yard and pound, will be derived 

 therefrom," which nullify and completely re- 

 verse his argument. 



His quotations are apparently made from a 

 circular, No. 47 of the Bureau of Standards 

 in which, according to his own words, it was 

 not intended to reproduce the order as a whole. 

 It is possible, therefore, that these very im- 

 ix)rtant words were omitted in that circular 

 and Mr. Stutz shall have the benefit of the 

 doubt, ibut if he had consulted the original 

 order he would have found them. 



There can be no doubt of their meaning and 

 it is a fortunate thing that the legal relations 

 established by the Act of 1866 are so very 

 nearly correct that for all ordinary purposes 

 of comparison (and there can be no other) they 

 are sufficiently accurate. 



Recalling the fact that when this Act was 

 passed Congress had never defined the yard or 

 the pound (except the Troy pound for use in 

 the mint) ; that these words had, throughout the 

 country as a whole, no definite meaning; and 

 the further fact that at that time the metric sys- 

 tem of weights and measures was in almost 



univer.;al use, except in Great Britain and the 

 United States, and that it was represented by 

 precise material standards, it seems more 

 probable than otherwise that the Act of 1866 

 itself put the country upon a metric basis, 

 supplemented and completed as it was by the 

 receipt and adoption in 1890 of the national 

 prototypes. 



In any event there can be no possiljle doubt 

 as to the effect of the issue of Bulletin No. 26 

 in making them the fundamental standards 

 for all metrological operations in which the 

 national government is in anj' way concerned. 

 The opponents of the metric system are 

 s'trangely silent regarding another Act of 

 Congress, much more far-reaching and vastly 

 more effective in putting the country upon a 

 metric basis than anything which preceded it. 

 It is the Act of July 12, 1894 which defines 

 the units of measure iby means of which trans- 

 actions amounting to many hundreds of mil- 

 lions of dollars annually are adjusted, furnish- 

 ing the sole method of measuring output and 

 consumption of one of the very largest and 

 moat important industries of the present day. 

 No one has had the courage to suggest a re-' 

 vision or repeal of that Act, so as to put into 

 it the sacrosanct inch and one of the numerous 

 pounds, in place of the centimetre and the 

 gramme. Watt, kilowatt, volt and ampere are 

 now familiar terms. The great w-ar produced 

 an almost universal interest in metric units 

 and caused many manufacturers to regret that 

 their use had not been made compulsory long 

 ago. 



And now space above and around us is al- 

 most constantly disturbed by waves, the length 

 of wliich, measured only in metres, is of vital 

 interest to tens of thousands of people, old 

 and young, rich and poor, who are finding 

 out what a metre is and what goes with it, so 

 that, take it all in all, it seems certain that the 

 opponents of metrological reform are engaged 

 in a hopeless task. 



In their own words, "they have beaten it 

 once," and perhaps they may beat it again, 

 hut not many more times. 



T. C. MEJTDENILiLL 



Kavemxa. Ohio 

 Septembek 2, 1922 



