IMPERIAL STANDARD TROY POUND WEIGHT. 
477 
“ standard pound, all of fine brass, which he will adjust with an apparatus, also 
“ contrived on purpose, as soon as possible, viz. 
“ 2 pounds, 
“ 4 ditto, 
“ 8 ditto, 
“16 ditto, 
“ 32 ditto.” 
And we might consider this statement nearly as a proof that the imperial standard 
was also of the same fine brass, if the multiples might be supposed to be made at 
the same time with the standard; because it is highly probable that Mr. Harris, 
under whose direction the three single pounds and their multiples were made, would 
under these circumstances have made them all of the same metal. But it appears 
from the Report of the former Committee that the multiples did not exist when the 
three weights of one pound each were delivered to that Committee. For it states : 
“ Your Committee intended to have had the parts and multiples of this troy pound 
“ also made, but found that there were not instruments sufficiently exact for that 
“ purpose ; and the contriving and making of such would take up more time than 
“ the probable continuance of this Session would permit : they have therefore left it 
“ for the future consideration of Parliament, whether anything of that nature should be 
“ performed .” (p. 437 b.) 
The multiples were of course not even begun to be made when the pounds were 
already finished ; and though it seems probable that Mr. Harris would as nearly as 
possible have made them of the same kind of metal as that of which the three single 
pounds were made, yet this produces only a probability that the imperial standard was 
of brass ; but nothing proves that Mr. Harris could procure afterwards the same fine 
brass of which the three single pounds were formerly made. Now it is generally 
known that brass, as a compound metal, varies in density according to the different 
proportions of the compounding metals adopted by the makers. (I have found differ- 
ences in specific gravity in different kinds of brass from T 9 to 8 - 4.) Of course, if it 
was even proved, as it is not, that the imperial standard was of brass, nothing would 
be gained by that proof, if we could not at the same time ascertain the identical brass 
from which it was made. 
24. This we should be able to do with a degree of probability bordering almost on 
certainty, if the other two single pounds, of the three presented to the Committee, 
could be traced, and were still existing. Indeed it is in the highest degree probable 
that these three single pounds, made all under Mr. Harris’s direction, adjusted and 
presented at the same time by him, were also of the same identical metal : it remains 
only to ascertain what became of them. The 7th Resolution of the second Committee 
(p. 463 a.) states : “ That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the yard mentioned 
“ in the 2nd Resolution of the former Committee upon the subject of weights and 
“ measures, agreed to by the House the 2nd June 1758, being the standard of length, 
