May 23, 1902.J 



SCIENCE. 



835 



other in our international business relations.' 

 The testimony of Mr. Godfrey L. Cabot, a 

 prominent merchant of Boston, includes the 

 following statement: 



Wherever this great improvement has gone, it 

 has simplified the ordinary commercial transac- 

 tions of daily life, minimized disputes, and given 

 an absolute standard from which there could be 

 no appeal and in which there was the least pos- 

 sible danger of error or misunderstanding. 



RELATION OF THE METRIC SYSTEM TO TRADE. 



The necessity for an improvement in the 

 weights and measures of the country is no- 

 where more apparent than in the ordinary 

 business transactions of daily life. Grain 

 and produce are bought and sold by capacity 

 measure, the bushel, peck and quart. The 

 necessity for handling these commodities in 

 large quantities by weight has resulted in the 

 adoption of different weights for a bushel 

 for the same coromodity in different parts 

 of the Union, and in a few of the Western 

 states the hundredweight is used instead of 

 the bushel. The diversity in this respect is 

 so great that a correct table of the number of 

 pounds to the bushel of different commodities 

 for the several states is difficult to procure. 



The long, short, and gross tons, without 

 any distinction in name, are used in the buy- 

 ing, selling, and transportation of coal, ore, 

 metals, and other heavy products. For 

 liquids in large quantity the barrel used has 

 many different values, and we find in co mm on 

 use often side by side avoirdupois weights, 

 troy weights, apothecary weights, and the 

 weights of the metric system. To add to this con- 

 fusion the subdivisions of the ordinary meas- 

 ures are often not adhered to. The engineer 

 uses the foot and tenths of a foot instead of 

 feet and inches ; the manufacturer, inches and 

 decimals of an inch instead of adhering to 

 the binary division; the gauger uses gallons 

 and tenths of a gallon. In the handling of 

 bullion we find troy ounces and thousandths 

 of an ounce instead of ounces and grains. The 

 engineer has discarded the inch, while some 

 manufacturers of machinery have discarded 

 the foot, hence we find tenths of a foot and 

 the inch in common use. These are but a few 

 of the instances where the introduction of the 



metric system would not only afford the ad- 

 vantages of a decimal system but furnish a 

 system sufficiently elastic for all purposes. 

 The experience of other nations has shown 

 that the confusion and inconvenience caused 

 by a change in the measures used in daily life 

 was largely overestimated, and in no case 

 have the people expressed a desire to return to 

 the former system of weights and measures. 



CONCLUSION. 



The countless transactions involving the 

 use of weights and measures make any prop- 

 osition involving a change a most important 

 one. The decimalization of our own system 

 of weights and measures has been proposed 

 by a few who have failed to consider the im- 

 portance of an international system and the 

 utter impossibility of the rest of the world 

 adopting such a system as our own, however 

 it may be improved in form. A change of 

 this sort would be incomparably more radical 

 than the adoption of the metric system. It 

 has also been proposed to modify the existing 

 system to one having a base of eight or 

 twelve on account of the possibility of con- 

 tinued binary subdivision, but here again not 

 only is the importance of an international 

 system overlooked, but the impracticable idea 

 is proposed of combining such a system with 

 a decimal system of numbers. When the 

 base of our system of numbers is changed to 

 some other than ten it will be sufficient time 

 to talk about a system of weights and meas- 

 ures having the same base. 



It should also be kept in mind that the^ 

 metric system is Just as capable of a binary 

 subdivision as any other, although the advan- 

 tages of such a division are only apparent in 

 the most ordinary business transactions, and 

 for the first few subdivisions. After the adop- 

 tion of the metric system, the use of the half 

 and quarter meter and half and quarter kilo- 

 gram would be as common as our half and 

 quarter dollar — smaller quantities would be ex- 

 pressed in decimals precisely the same as in 

 the case of our money. 



In 1866 Congress legalized the metric sys- 

 tem. From that time on it has been growing 

 in favor and in practical use. It is here to 



