232, Scientific Intelligence. 
For exact comparison the value of g (the rine of a body 
falling in vacuo) at the station considered, of course be 
known. In the above comparisons, it is takid = 980 C.G.S8. 
units of — 
ne horse-power is about three quarters of an erg-ten per second. 
More neatly, it is 7°46 ns Seg per second, and one force de 
cheval is 7°36 erg-nines per second. 
e mechanical equivalent “of one a degree (centigrade) of 
heat is 41°6 megalergs or 41,600,000 er 
[The dyne or ie of force which is proposed by the committee 
is to be a new unit of the same natur a gram-weight, or the 
earth’s attraction sor a gram-mass, and havi no commensurable 
ratio with it. Now our simplest and most useful ideas of force 
are derived at once from weight. It seems to us that, of necessity, 
s mit 
this will alwa e ease. Probably the learned committee 
e no expectation that even among scientific men the new units 
will entirely replace what they call t Igar ones. If, then, 
of science, and by people arge. Is there not some wa 
i ae sae great eril? "Socteii are formed oe sustained 
whose and most worthy object is to get rid of such confu- 
sions. "We f hink the proposed units should be poet “halted gel 
to show a necessity for their being. 
We do need, it may be added, a new name for the earth’s at- 
traction upon a gram of matter at some fixed place. The words 
gram, pound, - ae have had to do service in two different 
i ua 
Il. GroLtocy anp Natura History. 
1. Some of the tp teget views of Hutton.—The following 
paragraphs are cited from an Inaugural Lecture ARCHIBALD 
hee of 
uni 
being but little more than the hundred thousandth of a grammeter. 
deem a very serious objection. = 
“T still think that these awkward consequences, and the footing which the 
meter has already gained in science, will prove fatal to the recommendation of the 
Committee, and that experience will show that the meter must in the end be 
accepted as the standard unit of length.” 
