CannuTHERS.—4 System of Weights and Measures. 155 
the Spaniards! (perro being the Spanish word for dog). Here, I think, 
will be found quite enough to upset that far-fetched theory, seeing that the 
New Zealanders possessed their little South Sea dog ages before a Spanish 
keel ever floated on the waters of the South Pacific! But there are several 
other such theories abroad, equally without reasonable foundation. 
Art. XI.—A System of Weights and Measures. 
By J. Carrutuers, M. Inst. C.E. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 1st September, 1877.) 
In designing a system of weights and measures there are several points to 
be taken into consideration, of which the most important is, perhaps, that 
the radix of the system shall be continually divisible by two without a 
remainder. The number of inches, for instance, which the foot contains or 
the number of shillings which the pound contains should be some power of 
two. An odd number would be most inconvenient as the radix. If the foot 
contained eleven inches, half a foot would contain 54 inches, and a fraction 
is at once introduced, the inconvenience of which in commerce and in all 
arithmetical and mechanical work is very great. 
ext to the odd numbers, the most inconvenient are the odd numbers 
multiplied by two such as 6, 10, 14, 18, ete. Here the objectionable fraction 
is put off one step only, and on halving twice again shows itself. 
No system of measures in which one of these numbers is adopted as the 
radix ever has been nor ever will be thoroughly in use. The American 
divides his dollar into half and quarter dollars, and to continue as far as 
he can the convenience of being able to divide by two he adopts the “ bit” 
or “ York shilling " unknown to the law. The English workman divides 
the inch, not into three barley-corns as by law directed, but into halves, 
quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. The French workman again divides his 
millimetre into halves and quarters like his English brethren. The two 
, in fact, run side by side but do not coalesce; as far as the decimal 
system lends itself to division by two it is used, but no further. As soon as 
it fails in this respect it is thrown aside in favour of the more natural and 
convenient system of having a radix continually divisible by two. 
Another important point is that the several measures of weight, super- 
ficies, capacity, etc., shall be tied together, and be interdependent. The 
French adopted a logical system in which this point received full attention, 
but the inherent unsuitability of the number 10 as a radix has prevented its 
adoption in full, and their system is now a body without a head, for their 
