CarruTHERS.—A System of Weights and Measures. 159 
The cubic ell and superficial ell would be the fundamental measures of 
capacity and area. 
Measurement of time is only a form of circular measurement, and the 
day should be divided, like the circle, into six watches of four hours each; 
the watch would be divided into sixteen parts, each exactly equal to a 
quarter of an hour; and the quarter-hour into sixteen minutes, instead of 
fifteen as at present. 
I need not further recite the different measures to be used, as I affix a 
table showing their value in ordinary English measures. 
Of course fifteen new figures would have to be designed to use with the 
sixteen-fold system of counting, as the present figures would have to be 
kept exclusively for the decimal system. In the tables I have used the 
letters of the alphabet instead of the new figures. 
The system I have sketched out would have all the advantages of the 
decimal system and none of its disadvantages. It would be coherent 
throughout, and would greatly reduce the labour required in all arithmetical 
processes arising in business and science. There would be a loss of money 
in making the change, as a large amount of capital has been invested in 
machinery which has been designed for sub-dividing the inch in England, 
and the corresponding measure in other countries. As far as England, 
Russia, and America are concerned, this might be saved by a small sacrifice 
of the completeness of the system. By taking the inch as the standard, 
and multiplying by sixteen for the higher measures, we should get a mile 
which would be about 2 per cent. shorter than the sea-mile. 
