DECIMAL -WEIGHTS AND MEASUllES. 
483 
india-rubber, whicli being forcibly held down round its edge is at liberty to become dis¬ 
tended, and in so distending opens a number of very minute holes, which have been pre¬ 
viously pierced through its surface. When the pressure is removed, the disk again 
becomes flat and its orifices shut. The degree of pressure to be sustained before these 
perforations open is perfectly under control, and may be adjusted to any required degree. 
In the other form a small cylinder of india-rubber, closed at its lower end, is drawn 
over a corresponding cylinder of wood with a hole through its centre, and then tightly 
bojind at its upper edge. The india-rubber has a number of slits made in its substance, 
. which (when any orifice through which the liquor may flow is opened) receives the 
pressure of the air, and yielding to this, open, so as to let the air enter the vessel in 
exactly the same extent as liquor is withdrawn. When the flow of liquor is stopped, 
the edges of the slits become drawn together, so as to prevent any escape of liquor or 
gas in a wrong direction. Should there be any pressure from within upon the surface of* 
the india-rubber, this will only tend to the more perfect closing of the slits, and thus, 
while affording sufficient ingress, altogether restrain egress .—Journal of the Society of Arts. 
DECIMAL WEIGHTS AND MEASUBES. 
The following communication from the Astronomer Koyal appeared in the ‘ Athe- 
nseum’ of January 12th:— 
“ In the last week’s ‘ Athenseum,’ page 9, column 3,1 observe the following remarks:— 
*We should hail a Permissive Bill in favour of allowing the decimal subdivisions of 
a mile, a foot, a pound, a gallon, etc., to contracting parties who wish for them.’ ‘ Sir 
J. Herschel is also of opinion that decimals of our present units should be allowed.’ 
“ I ask leave to make known to the public, through the ‘ Athenseum,’ the present state 
of the British law on this subject. 
‘‘In the ‘Act to render Permissive the Use of the Metric System of Weights and 
Measures,’ 27 & 28 Viet. cap. 117, sec, 2, is the fallowing provision:—‘Notwithstand¬ 
ing anything contained in any Act of Parliament to the contrary, no contract or dealing 
shall be deemed to be invalid or open to objection on the ground that the weights or 
measures expressed or referred to in such contract or dealing are weights or measures of 
the Metric System, or on the ground that Decimal Subdivisions of legal Weights and 
Measures, whether Metric or otherwise, are used in such contract or dealing.’ 
“ This appears to contain all that is desired in the ‘Athenaeum.’ 
“ I greatly doubt whether extensive advantage will be taken of this permission, at least 
until we have a decimal coinage. I know of only three instances in which the decimal 
subdivision is really useful: the decimal division of the foot on surveyors’ levelling- 
staves ; the decimal division of the avoirdupois pound in certain operations for tare, by 
rule-of-three, in the Custom House; and the decimal subdivision of the troy ounce for 
bullion. In the first two of these, the persons concerned introduced them without wait¬ 
ing for an Act, and in the third they promoted a special Act. In ordinary cases, where 
there are facilities both for decimal and for binary subdivision (as the mile of 80 chains, 
the ton of 20 cwt.), the decimal subdivision is never used. 
“ One of the most curious instances, showing the tendency of mankind to adopt some 
special weight or measure as the standard for some special goods, and then to subdivide 
it, not by decimalizing, but by successive halving, is that of the stone of 141b,, used 
throughout Britain as the standard weight for flour, oatmeal, salt, etc. In Scotland it 
has long since been halved and halved down to the one-sixteenth part, or 14 ounces, 
there called the ‘ meal-pound.’ In Lancashire it is halved and halved ; and applications 
have been made by the local authorities to the Exchequer for standards of pounds.” 
On the same subject the subjoined practical letter, signed “Decimal Point,” was pub¬ 
lished in the ‘Times:’— 
“I see that under the head ‘The Public Health,’ quantities are given in ‘cubic 
metres,’ and in the Eegistrar-General’s return of the 7th, in a foot-note, it is stated that 
the cubic metre ‘is a much better unit for measuring sewage or water supply than the 
gallon.’ Can it be possible that our engineer to the Board of Works has so far adopted 
metric measures, or is this simply an attempt on the part of our Kegistrar-General to 
substitute French weights and measures for English ? 
