[ 82 3 ] 
who fay that the cubic foot contained a quadrantal 
of wine ; and as little to believe that thefe two 
ftandards were ever truly adjufted to each other. 
But had the original ftandard of the Roman foot 
been truly adjufted to the quadrantal, and continued 
invariable from the time of its firft eftablifhment, yet 
a falfe meafure of it might at one time or other have 
got into common ufe at Rome, as well as a falfe 
meafure of the French foot did at Paris; where in 
the year 1668, the mafon’s foot was found to exceed 
the foot of the Chatelet by •/- of a Paris inch (p), 
which is above of a London inch : and the unac- 
countable negligence which appears in the Roman 
coinage, gives fufticient ground to fufpedt they were 
not more accurate in their meafures. 
LXX. A Defcription of a metalline Then- 
mometer ; by Keane Fitzgerald, FJ/y; 
jF. R. S. Communicated by the Right Hon . 
George Earl of Macclesfield, P ref dent of 
the Royal Society . 
Read May 22, "FT is univerfally allowed, that all bodies, 
I whether folid or fluid, are expanded 
and contracted by heat and cold ; and, as far as ex- 
periments of this kind have yet reached, it appears, 
that fcarce any two bodies of different natures, or 
even of the fame ; are expanded, or contracted equally 
by the fame degrees. 
(9) Picard, in the paper De Menfuris, quoted above. 
The 
