[ 39 3 
AN ESSAY, 
‘SUGGESTING A PLAN TO INTRODUCE UNIFORM¬ 
ITY IN THE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES OF 
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
By PHILIP SCHUYLLEi Esquire, 
O introduce an uniform system of measures 
and weights, that shall prevail in the several com¬ 
munities composing a nation, it seems essential 
that the deductions should be made from a stand¬ 
ard the least variable ; that it should embrace 
properties, by means whereof^ the measures and 
weights to be derived therefrom, may with facility, 
and certainty, be communicated to other nations, 
with whom commercial intercourse prevails, to 
enable such other nations to compare and esti¬ 
mate their measures and weights with those of the 
nation who has deduced them from the standard. 
That as the nation, where such uniformity is to 
be established, must be supposed, already to have 
measures and weights, the deductions from the 
standard should be such, as that the old measures 
and weights may easily be compared with and es¬ 
timated in the new ; that the new should retain, as 
far as possible, the denoininations of the old, and 
approximate, as nearly as may be, to the length, ca¬ 
pacity and weight of the latter. 
Sir Isaac Newton, and many others, both prior, 
and subsequent to the period in which he wrote^ 
