separably connected with the difficult and delicate experiments and 

 investigations connected with the restoration of the standards of 

 measurement and weight, and with the subsequent labours of the 

 International Metric Commission. 



After the fire which, in 1834, consumed the Houses of Parliament, 

 it was found that the standards of measurement and weight there 

 preserved were hopelessly ruined, and a Commission was appointed 

 to consider the questions connected with their restoration. Professor 

 Miller was not, indeed, a member of that Commission, but it is well 

 known that his friendly assistance contributed greatly to guide the 

 Commission in some of their more important recommendations, espe- 

 cially in those which related to the means to be provided for con- 

 tingent restoration of the standard of weight. In sections 3 and 5 of 

 the Act 5th George IY, it was directed that "in case of the loss of 

 the standard, the yard shall be restored by taking the length which 

 shall bear a certain proportion to the length of the pendulum, vibrat- 

 ing seconds of mean time in the latitude of London, in a vacuum, 

 at the level of the sea; and that the pound shall be restored by 

 taking the weight which bears a certain proportion to the weight 

 of a cubic inch of water weighed in a certain manner." In their 

 report, dated December 21, 1841, the Commissioners decline to 

 recommend the adoption of these provisions, for reasons which are 

 given therein, and advise that each standard should be restored from 

 measures and from weights then existing, which had been most care- 

 fully compared with the original standards, stating also that they were 

 " fully persuaded that, with reasonable precautions, it may always be 

 possible to provide for the accurate restoration of standards by means 

 of material copies, which have been carefully compared with them, 

 more securely than by reference to experiments referring to natural 

 constants." 



In 1843 a Committee was appointed to superintend the construction 

 of the new Parliamentary standards of length and weight, of which 

 Professor Miller was a member, and to him was confided the construc- 

 tion of the new standards of weight. In the " Philosophical Trans- 

 actions " for 1856 he describes at length " The operations for restoring 

 the value of the Old Standard of Weight, for constructing the New 

 Standard of a different value, for constructing various derived Stan- 

 dards, and for establishing the relative value of the Kilogramme," a 

 paper which (to quote the words of the Astronomer Royal, endorsed 

 by a former President of this Society, Sir Edward Sabine) " will long 

 be cited as a model of accuracy." 



He was subsequently a member of a new Royal Commission for 

 " examining into and reporting on the state of the secondary standards, 

 and for considering every question which could affect the primary, 

 secondary, and local standards." 



