August 5, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



175 



printed by Mr. Halsey with another object in 

 view. The collector of the port of New York 

 says (p. 74) : 



I have caused to be taken from the files of this 

 office a number of invoices from Spain, Italy, Hol- 

 land and Belgium, and find as follows: From 

 Spain, 233 invoices, in 37 of which the weights 

 are expressed as pounds, the remainder being made 

 out according to the metric system; from Italy, 

 15 invoices, the weights therein expressed in the 

 metric system; from Holland, 55 invoices, in 14 

 of which the weights are expressed as pounds, 11 

 of the 14 are expressed as pounds avoirdupois, 

 and the other 3 invoices not stating the kind of 

 pound, the remainder of tlie invoices being made 

 out according to the metric system; from Bel- 

 gium, 126 invoices, in 14 of which the weights 

 are expressed in pounds, 31 in feet and inches, 

 2 in yards, and 1 in gallons; the remainder being 

 made out according to the metric system. 



This is very encouraging to those who be- 

 lieve that all great changes must be gradual. 

 One of the anti-metric advocates writes : ' The 

 question of weights deals rather with the fu- 

 ture, but linear measures are tied irrevocably 

 to the past.' The metric advocates should 

 accept this statement with the substitution of 

 ' strongly ' for ' irrevocably.' If the statement 

 were true as it stands, we should still be meas- 

 uring lengths in cubits. The inch has not 

 been invariable in the past. It may yet vary 

 enough to become exactly commensurate with 

 the centimeter if the exigencies of trade should 

 make this desirable, but not otherwise. Or, 

 unwelcome as such a proposition may be to 

 the physicists, the meter, which we all admit 

 to be an arbitrary standard, may yet be length- 

 ened enough to become equal to forty inches. 

 In either event readjustment implies incon- 

 venience and opponents will be plentiful. 



All fear about destroying the value of a vast 

 body of technical literature founded on the 

 English system is gratuitous. A very consid- 

 erable body of literature has grown up, 

 founded on the centimeter. Its value will 

 not be destroyed if the millimeter should be 

 lengthened to one twenty-fifth of an inch. 

 Both the technical world arid the scientific 

 world have thus far readily adapted their lit- 

 erature to the times, with no regard for the in- 

 violability of past usage. The fact that New- 



ton's ' Prineipia ' is now but little read does 

 not take away its importance as the founda- 

 tion of modern exact science. We simply 

 adapt it to modem nomenclature and modern 

 improved methods. 



Mr. Halsey's book closes with these words, 

 which apparently settle the case of the metric 

 advocates for all time : ' These people may 

 legislate until doomsday; they may make in- 

 finite confusion, endless turmoil, limitless sac- 

 rifice ; but move the English inch ? — the Archi- 

 medean lever is still unknown.' Dr. Lardner 

 is credited with having proved that the At- 

 lantic could never be crossed by a steam vessel. 

 The role of the prophet is often unsafe;' as 

 unsafe as the exhibition of rage in print. 



Mr. Dale in his discussion of the failure of 

 the metric system to meet the requirements of 

 those engaged in textile industry is in general 

 more dispassionate than Mr. Halsey, but both 

 writers exhibit considerable personal venom. 

 This is intelligible, if it is not excusable, 

 when we consider that each is a special repre- 

 sentative of industries in which many millions 

 of dollars are locked up in machinery that 

 would all need to be changed if a law were 

 passed that should impose a penalty upon the 

 use of standards other than metric. Each 

 considers that such coercion is implied in the 

 legislation that has been provisionally dis- 

 cussed in committee at Washington. Mr. 

 Dale, after criticizing some testimony in favor 

 of the metric system that had been given to 

 the committee by the president of a New Eng- 

 land cotton mill and the principal of a textile 

 school, says (p. 148) : " This is the kind of 

 evidence that was followed by a report bearing 

 all the earmarks of having been dictated from 

 that metric hothouse, the National Bureau of 

 Standards." He calls the metric system a 

 product of the French Revolution, associating 

 it with the excesses of the Reign of Terror. 

 He makes a violent attack on the personal char- 

 acter of the greatest of French mathemati- 

 cians, whom he calls ' the designer of the met- 

 ric system,' and who ' exhibited an utter dis- 

 regard of principle in both private and public 

 life ' and ' appropriated the work of others as 

 his own.' It is not uncommon to find men of 

 genius who are deficient in administrative 



