115 
The Decimal System. 
3,360,000,000 pounds ? The answer is easy. Even in the 
primary schools the system of decimals is now taught, and 
the youngest sailor boy in the Navy understands a “ four point 
seven ” (4*7) gun. The way in which the English word u point ” 
has already superseded the Latin word “ decimal ” in the 
vernacular shows that this amount of knowledge, at all events, 
has been, for good and all, assimilated by classes and masses. 
We have, therefore, simply to point off for ordinary use 
exactly as many points to the right as the degree of wholesale 
business requires. This facility is itself a strong recommen- 
dation. Thus the corn chandler might find it suit his books 
to point off one figure to the right and reckon in stones or 
bags of 10 lb. The smaller dealer in Mark Lane would find 
the 100-lb. unit more convenient, and would point off two 
figures to the right ; while the larger operators at the Baltic 
would find a great relief to eyesight, if to nothing else, in 
a 1,000-lb. unit, which would save the present working in half- 
penny and farthing differences in prices. They would point 
off three figures to the right ; then, and finally, statisticians 
dealing in millions would point off six figures to the right. The 
British average wheat crop would be familiarly known as 3,360 — 
four figures to quote — instead of 7,000,000 — seven figures to 
quote. 
We may indicate that this is so easy a system in practice 
that it has been in vogue in certain directions for some time 
past without exciting comment. It is, in fact, one of those 
things into which every person of the least education falls 
at once. Thus, in The Field (November 25, 1905), we have 
the world’s crops summed up in a table where the unit is 
millions of quarters. The United States Government, in its 
Blue Book for 1904, gives the agricultural areas to the 
hundredth of an acre ; thus, the Colville Indian Reserve is 
given as 8,752*96 acres. In the Agricultural Returns issued 
by the Board of Agriculture, July 21, 1906, the agricultural 
areas are given in millions of acres to two places of decimals, 
and the yields per acre to two places of decimals in bushels. 
In each case, of course, one points off two figures to the right. 
Dr. Mill’s “ Rainfall for 1905 ” gives the fall in inches to two 
places of decimals, and this is the degree of accuracy that is 
observed in the returns to the daily press, for rainfall, and also 
for the barometer and thermometer. 
Outside agriculture we have the sporting press, with its 
frank reliance on “the man in the street,” giving cricket 
averages to two places of decimals. The very newsboys 
perfectly understand that Hirst’s 55*94 for 1905 is better 
than Quaife’s 55*66. The clue to the ease with which the 
mind works out these figures resides in the eye, which glances 
