458 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 65. 



weights and measures." The same power 

 had also been expressly vested in Congress 

 by the earlier Articles of Confederation, and 

 that part relating to the coinage of money 

 was one of the first exercised, and one in 

 relation to which the power of Congress con- 

 tinues to be most fiercely and passionately 

 invoked to the present day. 



In the passage of years the power, carry- 

 ing with it inferentially the duty, to fix the 

 standard of weights and measures seems to 

 have been largely lost sight of. For more 

 than a generation we lived with no legal 

 standard by which could be determined even 

 the amount of metal which went into the 

 coin that came from our mints. Gallatin 

 procured from France a platinum kilogram 

 and meter in 1821 and from England a troy 

 pound in 1827, and in 1828 the latter was 

 recognized as the standard for mint pur- 

 poses by the following act : 



For the purpose of securing due conformity in 

 weight of the coins of the United States to the provis- 

 ions of this title, the brass troy jwund weight pro- 

 cured hy the Minister of the United States at London 

 in the year eighteen hundred and twenty -seven for the 

 use of the mint and now in custody of the mint at 

 Philadelphia, shall be the standard 'troy pound of the 

 mint of the United States, conformably to which the 

 coinage thereof shall be regulated. 



Meantime both the people and the Grov- 

 ernment were using such weights and 

 measures as were nearest at hand, derived 

 in the main from the English ancestry, but 

 made by themselves without any authori- 

 tative standard for comparison, and as a 

 consequence difiering materially from each 

 other. In 1830 the Senate directed the 

 Secretary of the Treasury to have a com- 

 parison made of the standards of weight 

 and measure used at the principal custom 

 houses of the United States and report the 

 same to the Senate. This was done, and 

 large discrepancies and errors were found 

 to exist. These discrepancies were nulli- 

 fying and violating the provision of the 

 Constitution which prescribes that " all 



duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform 

 throughout the United States." Varying 

 scales and varying measures inevitably pro- 

 duced varying rates of duty. The Treasury 

 Department, therefore, in the exercise of its 

 executive power and as a necessary incident 

 and means to the execution of the law and 

 the observance of the Constitution, adopted 

 for the use of that Department the Trough- 

 ton scale, then in the possession and use of 

 the Coast Survey, as the unit of length, and 

 the troy pound of the mint as the unit of 

 weight. From the latter the avoirdupois 

 pound was to be derived, assuming that 

 there were 7,000 grains in the pound avoir- 

 dupois to 5,760 in the pound troy. For 

 measures of capacity the wine gallon of 231 

 cubic inches and the Winchester bushel of 

 2,150.42 cubic inches were adopted. This 

 gave to the Treasury Department the basis 

 of a system of weights and measures to be 

 used in its operations, and in order to pro- 

 mote the general adoption and use of the 

 same throughout the country. Congress, in 

 in June, 1836, adopted the following joint 

 resolution : 



That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he here- 

 by is, directed to cause a complete set of all the 

 weights and measures adopted as standards, and now 

 either made or in the progress of manufacture for the 

 use of the several custom houses, and for other pur- 

 poses, to be delivered to the Governor of each State in 

 the Union, or such persons as he may appoint, for 

 the use of the States, respectively, to the end that a 

 uniform standard of weights and measures may be 

 established throughout the Union. 



In accordance with this resolution sets of 

 the weights and measures adopted for use in 

 the custom houses were sent to the several 

 States, and onlj'- in this indirect and inferen- 

 tial way have the customary weights and 

 measures of the United States been legally 

 recognized. By the Act of March 3, 1881, 

 similar sets of standards were directed to 

 be supplied to the various agricultural col- 

 leges which had received land grants from 

 the United States at a cost not exceeding 



