190 ' MEASURING APPARATUS OF THE 



Now, therefore, it will be necessary to enquire a little further into 

 first principles; and let us think for a moment what is afoot? The 

 definition of a foot is twelve inches. But what is an inch? Three barley- 

 corns make an inch, as we are told at school; but unless it can be shewn 

 that the ears of barley in France have grains longer than those of England, 

 it will be difficult to shew why the French foot is longer than the English, 

 as it actually is, in the ratio of seventeen to sixteen nearly. 



Our enquiries will lead us at last to the conclusion, that what is called 

 the standard yard of Great Britain is not in itself a very determinate 

 quantity ; for take several carpenter's rules and compare them, and two 

 of them will hardly ever be found alike ^ or take several brass Gunter's 

 scales, as they are called, made by different makers, and they will by no 

 means correspond with each other, nor is it easy to conceive how they ever 

 should, for the old standard of reference, which was three grains of dry 

 barley, must vary from causes almost innumerable. Indeed, in respect to 

 national measures we owe no thanks to the wisdom of our ancestors. 



Every country in Europe has its own particular measure. We have 

 the Roman palm, the braccio of some parts of Italy, the ruthe of Dantzic, 

 and numerous others. Most countries, however, use the term foot, because 

 it is supposed to have some relation to the part of the human frame most 

 easily accessible, and whether it is owing to what are called the degene- 

 rate modern days, or whether the foot originally was taken as a standard 

 of reference with a shoe on it, certain it is that twelve of our inches, 

 now-a-days, would be rather a longer foot than suitable to ornament or 

 utility. 



It will hardly be credited, yet it is an actual fact, that there are in 

 Europe alone upwards of a hundred different national measures, no two of 

 which had, until lately, their relative values thoroughly known ; but if 



