W E I 
WEI 
W E I 
000 
It appears from the construction of thisma- 1 
chine, that it operates like circular compasses ; 
and does not, like the common wheel way- 
wiser, measure the surface of every stone and 
molehill, &c. but passes over most of the ob- 
stacles it meets with, and measures the chords 
only, instead of the arcs of any curved sur- 
faces upon which it rolls. 
WEASEL. See Viterra. 
WEATHER. See Meterology. 
Weather-glasses, are instruments con- 
trived to indicate the state or disposition of 
the atmosphere, and the various alterations in 
the weather : such are barometers, thermo- 
meters, hygrometers, &c. 
WEAVERS. The w'ages of journeymen 
weavers in London are to be settled by the 
lord mayor, recorder, and aldermen. Mas- 
ters giving more wages than is appointed, to 
forfeit 50/. and journeymen demanding, or 
combining to demand more, to forfeit 405. or 
be imprisoned three months. 
WEAVING-LOOM. See Loom. 
WEB, a tissue, or texture, formed of 
threads interwoven with each other ; some 
whereof are extended in length, and called 
the warp; and others drawn across, and 
called the woof. See Warp, &c. 
Web, spider's, or cobweb. See Aranea. 
WEBERA, a genus of plants of the class 
and order pentaudria monogynia. It is con- 
torted; berry inferior, two-celled; cells one- 
seeded; stigma club-shaped; calyx five-cleft. 
There are three species, shrubs of the East 
Indies. 
WEEVER. See Teachings. 
WEIGELIA, a genus of plants of the class 
and order pentaudria monogynia. The 
calyx is five-leaved ; corolla tunnel-form ; 
style from the base to the germ ; stigma pel- 
tate ; seed one. There are two species, 
shrubs of Japan. 
WEIGH,. Way, or Wey, luaga, a weight 
of cheese, wool, See. containing 256 pounds 
avoirdupoise. Of corn, the weigh contains 
forty bushels ; of barley or malt six quarters. 
In some places, as Essex, the weigh of cheese 
is 300 pounds. 
WEIGHT, gravity, in physics, a quality 
in natural bodies whereby they tend down- 
wards, towards the centre of the earth. Or 
weight may be defined in a less limited man- 
ner, to be a power inherent in all bodies 
whereby they lend to some common point, 
called the centre of gravity ; and that with a 
greater or less velocity, as they are more or 
less dense, or as the medium they pass 
through is more or less rare. 
In tl\e common use of language, weight 
and gravity are considered as one and the 
same thing. Some authors, however, make 
a difference between them, and hold gravity 
only to express a uisus, or endeavour to de- 
scend, but weight an actual descent. But 
there is room for a better distinction. In ef- 
fect, one may conceive gravity to be the qua- 
lity as inherent in the body; and weight the 
same quality, exerting itself either against an 
♦bstacle, or otherwise. Hence, weight may 
be distinguished, like gravity, into absolute 
and specific. See Gravity. 
Sir Isaac Newton demonstrates, that the 
weights of all bodies, at equal distances from 
the centre of the earth, are proportionable 
to the quantities of matter each contains 
Whence it follows, that the weights of bodies 
have not any dependance on their forms or 
textures, and that all spaces are not equally 
full of matter. Hence also it follows, that 
the weight of the same body is different on 
the surface of different parts of the earth, as 
its figure is not a sphere, but a spheroid. 
Weight, pondus, in mechanics, is any- 
thing to be raised, sustained, or moved by a 
machine, or any thing that in any manner 
resists the motion to be produced. 
Weight, in commerce, denotes a body of 
a known weight, appointed to be put in the 
balance against other bodies, whose weight 
is required. 
The security of commerce depending, in 
good measure, on the justness of weights, 
which are usually of lead, iron, or brass, 
most nations have taken care to prevent the 
falsification of them, by stamping or marking 
them by proper officers, after being adjusted 
by some original standard. Thus in England, 
the standard of weights is kept in the exche- 
quer, by a particular officer, called the clerk 
of the market. 
Weights and Measures, regulation of. 
This is a branch of the king’s prerogative. 
For the public convenience, these ought to 
be universally the same throughout the na- 
tion, the better to reduce the prices of articles 
to equivalent values. But as weight and 
measure are things in their nature arbitrary 
and uncertain, it is necessary that they are 
reduced to some fixed rule or standard. It 
is, however, impossible to fix such a standard 
by any written law or oral proclamation ; as 
no person can, by words only, give to another 
an adequate idea of a pound weight, or foot 
rule. It is therefore expedient to have re- 
course to some visible, palpable, material 
standard, by forming a comparison with which 
all weights and measures may be reduced to 
one uniform size. Such a standard was an- 
tiently kept at Winchester; and we find in 
the Jaws of king Edgar, near a century before 
the Conquest, an injunction that that measure 
should be observed throughout the realm. 
Most nations have regulated the standard 
of measures of length, from some parts of the 
human body; as the palm, the hand, the 
span, the foot, the cubit, the ell (ulna or arm), 
the pace, and the fathom. But as these are 
of different dimensions in men of different 
proportions, antient historians inform us, that 
a. new standard of length was fixed by oin- 
king Henry the First; who commanded that 
the ulna, or antient ell, which answers to the 
modern yard, should be made of the exact 
length of his own arm. 
A standard of long measure being once 
gained, all otliers are easily derived from it; 
those of greater length by multiplying that 
original standard, those of less by dividing 
it. Thus, by the statute called compositio 
ulnarum et perticarum, 5-t yards make a 
perch ; and the yard is subdivided into three 
feet, and each foot into twelve inches, which 
inches will be each of the length of three 
barleycorns. But some, on the contrary, 
derive all measures by composition, from the 
barleycorn. 
Superficial measures are derived by squar- 
ing those of length : and measures of capacity 
by cubing them. 
The standard of weights was originally- 
taken from grains or corns of wheat, whencfl 
our lowest denomination of weights is stilL 
called a grain; thirty-two of which are dill 
rected, by the statute called compositio men- 
suraruin, to compose a pennyweight, tvventj 
of which make an ounce, and" twelve ounces a 
pound, & c. 
Under king Richard the First it was ordain- 
ed, that there should be only one weight ani./ 
one measure throughout the nation; and that 
the custody of the assize or standard of 
weights and measures, should be committed! 
to certain persons in every city and borough! 
from whence the antient office of the king’s, 
ulnager seems to have been derived. Thesis- 
original standards were called pondus regisl 
and mensura donfini regis, and are directed 
by a variety of subsequent statutes to be kept 
in the exchequer chamber, by an officer 
called the clerk of the market) except th<H 
wine gallon, which is committed to the cit J| 
of London, and kept in Guildhall. 
The Scottish standards are distributee] 
among the oldest boroughs. The elward i 
kept at Edinburgh, the pint at Stirling, the 
pound at Lanark, and the firlot at Linlith- 
gow. 
The two principal weights established ia 
Great Britain, are troy weight and avoirdu- 
pois weight, as before mentioned. Undei 
the head of the former it may farther b« 
added, that a carat is a weight of four grains : 
but when the term is applied to gold, it de- 
notes the degree of fineness. Any quantity 
of gold is supposed divided into twenty-foui 
parts. If the whole mass is pure gold, it is 
sfid to be twenty-four carats fine ; if there art 
twenty-three parts of pure gold, and orn 
part of alloy or base metal, it is said to b< 
twenty-three carats fine,, and so on. 
Pure gold is too soft to be used for coin, 
The standard coin of this kingdom, is 22 ca* 
rats fine. A pound of standard gold- is coined 
into 44 guineas, and therefore every guinea 
should weigh 5 dwts. g)|-i grains. 
A pound of silver for coin contains 1 1 oz 
2 dwts. pure silver, and 18 dwts. alloy; and 
standard silver plate ] 1 ounces pure silven 
with one Ounce alloy. A pound of standard 
silver is coined into 62 shillings, and there- 
fore the weight of a shilling should be 3 dwts, 
20|JL grains.. 
Weights may be distinguished into antient 
and modern, foreign and domestic. 
Weights, Antient. 1. Those of the antient 
Jews, reduced to the English troy weights, will 
stand as in the following table : 
Shekel - 
CO 
Maneh - 
3000 
50 Talent 
lb. 
oz. 
dwt. 
gr- 
00 
00 
09 
OL’A 
7 
02 
03 
06 
10| 
113 
10 
Ol 
lof 
2. Grecian and Roman weights, reduced to 
English troy weight, will stand as in the follow- 
ing- table : 
