OUR HETEROGENEOUS SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS 



AND MEASURES 



AN EXPLANATION OF THE REASONS WHY THE UNITED STATES 



SHOULD ABANDON ITS OBSOLETE SYSTEM OF 



INCHES, TONS, AND GALLONS 



By Alexander Graham Bell 



The following pages contain an informal address to the Committee on 

 Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the U. S. House of Representatives on Feb- 

 ruary 16. The bill under consideration reads as follows: 



Be it enacted by the Senate and Hou e of Representatives of the United States 

 of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the first of July, nineteen 

 hundred and eight, all of the Departments of the Government of the United States, 

 in the transaction of business requiring the use of weight and measurement, shall 

 employ and use the weights and measures of the metric system. 



The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by L. N. Littauer, 

 Representative from New York, and is known as "the Littauer Bill." . Dr Bell's 

 address is published here through the courtesy of the chairman of the committee, 

 James H. Southard, of Ohio, 



THIS is one of the briefest bills I 

 have even seen — only five 

 lines — but it is pregnant with 

 consequences to the people of the United 

 States. It means very much more than 

 appears upon its face. This is a manda- 

 tory bill requiring the use of the metric 

 system in the departments of the govern- 

 ment, but of course Congress would not 

 pass a bill of this kind unless as a step 

 toward the introduction of the metric 

 system generally in the United States. 

 So that this really means, if you pass it, 

 that you have decided to abolish the 

 chaotic systems of weights and measures 

 we now have and substitute the metric 

 system not simply for the government de- 

 partments, but for the whole of the United 

 States. This bill is simply a logical step 

 in the consummation of the greater plan, 

 and I hope it will pass. 



It is obvious that our present system of 

 weights and measures is in a very chaotic 

 condition. It certainly is not right that a 



coal company should be able to pay their 

 miners by a ton of 2,240 pounds and then 

 sell their coal by another ton of 2,000 

 pounds. But even the pound itself varies 

 in weight according to circumstances. 

 Some of our people employ a pound of 

 16 ounces, others a pound of 12 ounces; 

 so that it is necessary in business trans- 

 actions to have a definite understanding 

 as to the kind of pound we employ — 

 whether avoirdupois or troy weight. The 

 ounce, too, varies. Our apothecaries use 

 an ounce of 8 drams, whereas there are 

 16 drams in an ounce avoirdupois. Thus 

 the avoirdupois pound consists of 16 

 ounces of 16 drams each, equivalent to 

 256 drams, whereas the pound used by 

 our apothecaries contains only 12 ounces 

 of 8 drams each, equivalent to 96 drams. 

 In a similar manner we have different 

 kinds of bushels and gallons and other 

 measures in common use by different sec- 

 tions of our people ; and if there is any- 

 thing that is clear it seems to be this — 



