MEASURES OE LENGTH AND WEIGHT. 
179 
ained in the office. The Commission have already indicated that the existing series of 
official standards of avoirdupois weight ought to cease to be secondary legal standards 
as soon as others shall be substituted for them. So far as the examination by the 
Warden of the Standards has yet advanced, no other of the existing official standards 
ought necessarily to be discarded. 
‘‘ 10. The Warden of the Standards is engaged in collecting evidence, both from his own 
examination of official and local standards, and from the representations of local in¬ 
spectors and others, as to the amounts of error which ought to be tolerated in compari¬ 
sons of different classes. A scale has been formed for provisional use in the department, 
with the sanction of the Commission, but it is considered by them as open to further 
correction. 
“ 11. The great and important duty of considering how the Standards Department 
may be made most efficient has engaged the earnest attention of the Commissioners. 
As regards the principal object of the department, namely, the ensuring that no weights 
and measures, except those possessing reasonable and uniform accuracy, shall be in use 
for public sales throughout the kingdom, the Commission considered it as the first neces¬ 
sary step to demand information of various kinds from the local inspectors ; and a series 
of inquiries, approved by the Commission, was issued by the Warden of the Standards to 
all the authorized local inspectors. The returns to these inquiries have been received, and, 
by a process of great labour, conducted under the immediate superintendence of the 
Warden of the Standards; abstracts of a large portion of the returns have been pre¬ 
pared, and the work is still advancing. Until this operation has been completed, the 
Commission are scarcely in a state to lay before your Majesty any recommendations upon 
the important points wffiich will probably be brought to notice. 
“ 12. The Commission have recognized with great satisfaction the effect of the enact¬ 
ment in the Act 29th and 30th of Victoria, cap. 82, sec. 11, removing the limitations by 
which the utility of the Standards Office was formerly confined to means of ensuring 
ordinary accuracy in public sales, and tending to make the office available for scientific 
researches. It has appeared to them desirable for carrying out this intention that the 
office should be made a place' of deposit of all standards of antiquarian or historical in¬ 
terest, of standards of accurate character which have been made available for the forma¬ 
tion of the Imperial standards, and of standards which have been used as bases of the 
most important geodetic measures, pendulum measures, and other scientific measures. 
With this view, and on the application of the Astronomer Royal, chairman of the Com¬ 
mission, the Lords Commissioners of your Majesty’s Treasury, have given their assent 
to the deposit in the Standards Office of various valuable standards and apparatus which 
had been collected at the Royal Observatory ; the Lords Commissioners of the Admi¬ 
ralty, in like manner, have sanctioned the transfer of the Cape of Good Hope geodetic 
standard; and the Secretary of State for India in Council has also sanctioned the transfer 
of the Indian standard. These standards and apparatus accordingly have been lodged 
in the Standards Office. The Commission trust that sanction will also be given for the 
transfer from the Royal Mint of a large collection of foreign standard weights collected 
about fifty years past, and possessing a valuable though antiquarian character. 
“ 13. It will be remarked that the Standards Department has long been in possession 
of many antiquarian standards, and of standards of accurate construction which have 
borne historically an important part in the formation of the modern exact standards. 
The Commission regret to state that two weights of the latter class, which had been 
transmitted under proper sanction for exhibition in Paris, have in some unexplained way 
received serious injury. The Commission are, however, satisfied that there remains 
abundant direct evidence for the constructive history of the modern standards, although 
they cannot but feel the importance of carefully preserving every representative (whether 
original or derived) of the national weights and measures constructed at the time of a 
great reform in our system of standards, which can serve to give collateral evidence. 
“ 14. For giving further effect to the enactment above cited the Commission desire to 
point out that a great step would be made in the promotion of general scientific accu¬ 
racy by giving to men of science, artists employed in the manufacture of scientific in¬ 
struments, aud others (on payment of a proper fee), the results of comparison of their 
own standards with the standards of most accurate character in the Standards Office. 
As standards of this class would not be available for the official purposes of inspectors 
of standards, and as there is consequently no necessity for limiting the class of standards 
