756 PROF. W. H. MILLER ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW STANDARD POUND. 
pound, was divided by the Romans into 12 ounces. So also the avoirdupois pound 
was probably derived from the large Attic mina of 6945-3 grains troy, the 60th 
part of the large Attic talent, divided by the Romans, as the pound avoirdupois is 
divided, into 16 ounces, of nearly the same weight as the modern Roman ounce*. 
According to Greaves, it approximates much more closely to the ancient Roman 
ounce. 
The word ‘ avoirdepois,’ applied to commodities, occurs in statutes of the 9 th and 
27 th of Edward III. By a statute of the 24th of Henry VIII., butchers were 
obliged to provide themselves with beams, scales and weights sealed, called ‘ haber- 
depois.’ It is not known when the avoirdupois weight was first introduced. Two 
weights, one of which, in its present state, is about 650 grains less than seven pounds 
avoirdupois, in the possession of C. C. Babington, Esq., of St. John’s College, Cam- 
bridge, are marked with a crowned H, which is supposed to be of the time of 
Henry VII. Two weights, one of 2 pounds, the other of 4 pounds avoirdupois, orna- 
mented with the Tudor rose, and marked with the letter H, and therefore pro- 
bably of the reign of either Henry VII. or Flenry VIII., are preserved in the Uni- 
versity Library, Cambridge. In the reign of Elizabeth avoirdupois weights were 
deposited in the Exchequer, as appears from the name and inscription thereon. The 
Transactions of the Royal Society, for 1742 and 1743 (vol. xlii. p. 541), contain an 
account of the comparison of various standards of measure and weight, from which 
the following extracts are made : — ‘ The weights in His Majesty’s Exchequer, and 
which are esteemed the standards, are a pile, or box, of hollow brass weights, from 
256 ounces (troy) downwards, to the 16th part of an ounce, all severally marked 
with a crowned E.’ ‘ The weight mentioned in all our old Acts of Parliament, from 
the time of King Edward I., is universally allowed to be the troy weight, whose 
pound consisted of 12 ounces, each of which contained 20 pennyweights. And as 
the pound is the weight of the largest single denomination commonly mentioned in 
those Acts, 12 ounces taken from the pile of troy weights above mentioned, as there 
is no single troy pound weight, must now be reputed to be the true standard of the 
troy pound, used at this day in England. 
‘ Besides which troy standards, there are also kept in the Exchequer the following 
standards for averdupois weights ; that is to say, a fourteen pound bell-weight of 
brass, marked with a crowned E, and inscribed 
XIIII. POVNDE AVERDEPOIZ. ELIZABETH. REGINA. 1582. 
As also a seven pound, a four pound, a two pound, and a single pound, like averdu- 
pois bell-weights, and severally marked as follows, excepting the variations for the 
number of pounds in each respective weight.’ 
(The marks are: VII. A., AN” DO, a crowned E. L., 1588, A“ REG. XXX.) 
* Doursther, Dictionnaire des Poids et Mesures, p. 281. 
