36 On the Induration of Mortar. [Jan. 



and the convenience arising from its facility of arithmetical reduction, 

 would not be felt so immediately by the native community to whom 

 generally the decimal fractions * are unknown. For them the con- 

 tinued division by 4 would be more convenient, as it is that to which 

 they are accustomed, and to which their notation is adapted. It also 

 should not escape remark that the proportions of weights, &c. however 

 arbitrary they may seem, have doubtless been regulated by conveni- 

 ence, and relatively to the value, the size of the packages, and the me- 

 thods of transporting the articles weighed or measured. 



VII. — On the Induration of Mortar. 



The paper on this subject in the April number of the Journal, has re- 

 called my attention to an enquiry w T hich formerly much interested me, 

 and its general usefulness will be my excuse for offering the following 

 observations on it. 



The strength of cements may be compared by attaching bricks to a 

 wall of the same material, added one by one (each being allowed to dry- 

 before a second is applied) until by the weight the cohesion of the 

 cement is overpowered, and the mass breaks off from the wall. In the 

 285th page of Barlow's ' Essay on the strength and stress of Timber* 

 some experiments made by J. Brunei, Esq. in this manner are men- 

 tioned ; and, by comparison with these, the relative cohesion of Indian 

 and British cements may be ascertained. 



The use of sugar (jaggry) in the preparation of cements is attributed 

 to two causes ; its being partly composed of carbon and oxygen, and 



* India in bestowing the deeimal arithmetic upon Europe seems to have forgotten it 

 herself. At least the Mahrattas, Canarese, Malialies, Telingas, and Tamulians as well as 

 the Musulmans, make use of different fractional systems, while the notation of the Tamu- 

 lians and Malialies, is very defective, compared with the rest, the digits not deriving value 

 from position, so that thirteen of them are required to represent the number 2,234,567. 



The publishers of books in the native languages would have done well to have made use 

 only of English numerals and notation, which would have assisted their introduction 

 throughout India. 



Since the forms of 5 of the 10 digits are the same in English, Mabratta.rSanscrit, Canarese 

 and Teloogoo, there can be little doubt that an order that the English notation only should 

 be used in Cutcherries after the 1st of January 1837, would be easily obeyed, and it may be 

 remarked that were the English figures used, it would be easy for the European officere 

 themselves to examine and correct accounts without translation, and that the copying of 

 them might be saved by having the headings written in the native languages, and those 

 translated in English. Considering how voluminous accounts are, the saving of stationery 

 and writers' labour would not be so trifling as to be unworthy of consideration. 



The European vulgar fractions are infinitely more convenient than those of the na- 

 tives, both Hindoos and Mahomedans, which, among other objections, admit only 

 of a limited number of denominators. 



