630 
ME. AIET’S ACCOU^sT OF THE COXSTEHCTIOX OP 
Section III. — Appointment of the Treasury Commission of 1838 ; its proceedings and 
Report. Appointment of the Treasury Commission o/1843: its proceedings to the 
death of Mr. Bailt in 1844. 
The letter of the Chancellor of the Exchequer constituting the Standard Commission 
was in the following terms : — 
“Dowaing Street, Hay 11, 1S3S. 
“ Sir, — The attention of Her Majesty’s Government has lately been directed to the 
necessity of determining a standard weight and measure to replace those which were 
destroyed by the burning of the Houses of Parliament. 
“ Before any steps are taken in this important matter, I am desu’ous of availing myself 
of the opinion of yourself and other competent persons ; and I therefore request that 
you will have the goodness to communicate with the gentlemen named in the margin 
(Mr. F. Baily, Mr. J. H. Bethune, Mr. Davies Gilbert, Mr. J. S. Lefe^*re, ^Ir. J. 'SY. 
Lubbock, Bev. G. Peacock, Kev. R. Sheepshanks), to each of whom a copy of this letter 
will be sent, and report to me the course which you shall agree in thinking best to be 
pursued under the peculiar circumstances of the case. 
“ I have, &c., 
“ To the Astronomer HoyalT T. SPRING PlCE. 
The objects of this Commission were evidently intended to be of preliminary character, 
and therefore indefinite and wide. It was proper, for instance, to consider, not only 
whether the Parliamentary enactment for the restoration of the Standard of Length 
ought to be repealed, but also whether a new fundamental measm*e or a new scale of 
measures, implying a National Standard of different length from the old one, should be 
recommended. The Commission collected much eHdence, and digested it under the 
heads 
A. Basis (arbitrary or natural) of the system of Standards. 
B. Construction of Primary Standards. 
C. Means of restoring the Standards. 
D. Expediency of preserving one measure, t&c. unaltered. 
E. Change of Scale of Weights and Measures. 
F. Alteration of the Land-Chain and the Mile. 
G. Abolition of Troy Weight. 
H. Introduction of Decimal Scale. 
I. Assimilation to the Scales of other Comitries. 
K. Construction of Secondary Standards. 
L. Construction of Local Standards. 
M. N, O relate to legal and practical details. 
On 1841, December 21, the Commission presented their Report, of which the follow- 
ing are the parts which relate to the Standard of Length. 
Chapter I. describes the ruined state of the Imperial Standards. 
Chapter II With respect to the definition, we are of opinion that the definition 
