METRICAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 
675 
any sane person, as, to some individuals, is the disputing a literal construction of certain 
texts of Scripture. 
Thus, then, for the sake of avoiding any change in language and notation that can 
possibly be escaped, I would call eight by the name of ten, and my numerals would run 
thus:— 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, 
14, 15, 16, 17, 20. 
fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, twenty. 
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, and so on. Thus carried through, 100, still called one 
hundred, would be equal to sixty-four,—64,—as we now express it. The great advan¬ 
tage of such a plan would be, the exclusion, to an unprecedented and enormous extent 
from all ordinary business transactions, of fractional parts, by reason of the ready sub¬ 
division of eight, its multiples and divisors, down to unity, as is easily seen,— 
100(or 64)-f-2 = 40 (or 32); 40-^2 = 20 (or 16), this again -*-2 = 10 (or 8)-s-2 =4-*-2 = 1. 
According to the decimal system it stands thus,—and there is no arriving at unity at 
all,— 
100 -*- 2 = 50 -*- 2 = 25 -=- 2 = 12 \ -*- 2 = 6 \ -*- 2 = 3 £ 2 = 1 
which last cannot be expressed at all in decimals. 
As one proof of the practical advantage of a system of octaves, we daily witness the 
preference given to it by nearly all our prescribers ; and long may it be before our 8 oz. 
and 16 oz. bottles give place to 10 oz. aud 20 oz., before the ounce liquid and solid 
ceases to be divisible into eight parts!—the remnants left to us of a system infinitely 
more convenient in practice than any which could be substituted for it. 
I have no more to say. My chief wish is—as being nearer apparently to fulfilment— 
to discover a conclusive argument against it other than one based on a temporary expe¬ 
diency only.— I am, Gentlemen, yours respectfully, 
Thomas Lowe. 
Liverpool , May 4, 1869. 
P.S. I quote against myself the line of Horace, “Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio,” 
being well aware of the very palpable objections which may be taken to this letter. 
Such, however,—being prepared for them,—will not hurt me. I want to see a valid 
objection to the principle, or theory. I know it goes very far beyond any mere question 
of weights and measures, and I don’t lay claim to originality. 
Dr. Attfield said that, in the abstract, the duodecimal system was, in the 
estimation of many persons, better than the decimal, and the octonary system 
better than either. He thought no one would endeavour to find any argument 
against the use of the latter system ; but there was this practical objection to it, 
that throughout the world their system of numbers was decimal ; and, as he 
said at the last meeting, the natural result of that would seem to be that their 
system of weights and measures and coins, which were but the concrete expres¬ 
sions of numbers, should be decimal too. That had been the tendency of all 
alterations in this matter for the past hundred years. It might be interest¬ 
ing to the meeting to know that the octonary system which the writer of the 
letter referred to had been thoroughly investigated, and very well set before 
pharmaceutists by Mr. Proctor, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who was himself an 
excellent pharmaceutist. Some five years ago he read a paper at the first meet¬ 
ing of the British Pharmaceutical Conference, and it was published in the 
Pharmaceutical Journal for 1864 ; and he went so far as to give a more com¬ 
plete system than the writer of the letter. Mr. Proctor suggested the giving of 
actual words as the names of the weights he would use, which differed from 
each other both in submultiples and multiples by 8. Thus, he would begin 
