to ascertain a Standard of Weight and Measure. 175 
thermometer at 66°, weighs 252,422 parliamentary grains ; from 
whence all the other weights may be derived. 
As a summary of what has been done, I hope it may now be 
said, that we have attained these three objects ; 
1st. An invariable, and at all times communicable, measure 
of Mr. Bird's scale of length, now preserved in the House of 
Commons ; which is the same, or agrees within an insensible 
quantity, with the ancient standards of the realm. 
2dly. A standard weight of the same character, with reference 
to Mr. Harris’s Troy pound. 
3dly. Besides the quality of their being invariable, (without 
detection,) and at all times communicable, these standards will 
have the additional property of introducing the least possible 
deviation from ancient practice, or inconvenience in modern 
use. 
(§. 43.) Before I close this Paper, after having said so much 
on the subject of weights and measures, it may not be impro- 
per to add a few words upon a topic that, although not imme- 
diately connected, has some affinity to it; I mean the subject 
of the prices of provisions, and of the necessaries of life, &c. at 
different periods of our history, and, in consequence, the de- 
preciation * of money. Several authors have touched inciden- 
tally upon this question, and some few have written professedly 
upon it ; but they do not appear to me to have drawn a distinct 
conclusion from their own documents. It would carry me in- 
finitely too wide, to give a detail of all the facts I have collected;: 
I shall therefore content myself with a general table of their 
* The various changes that have taken place, by authority, in different reigns, either 
in the weight or alloy of our coins, are allowed for in the subsequent table. 
