JOURNAL OF EDUCATION, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED "THE EDUCATIONAL EXPOSITOR." SPECIALLY DESIGNED AS A Medium of Correspondence AMONG THE HEADS OF TRAINING COLLEGES, PAROCHIAL CLERGYMEN, AND ALL SCHOOLMASTERS, PUPIL TEACHERS, SUNDAY- THE English Journal of Education. JANUARY, 1856. A NEW SYSTEM OF DECIMAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. OUR UR present system of weights and measures is a disgrace to a great scientific and commercial nation. In our weights and measures there is no fixed scale of notation: for example, 60 grains make a dram, 8 drams an ounce, 16 ounces a pound, 28 pounds a quarter, 112 pounds a hundred weight, and 20 hundred weight a ton; in liquid measures, 2 pints make a quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 2 gallons a peck, 4 pecks a bushel, and 8 bushels a quarter. We have even no uniformity in the use of any particular weight or measure: for example, the pound avoirdupois contains 7,000 grains, while the pound Troy contains only 5,760 grains. In different parts of England the stone contains from 8 to 16 pounds, while in the greater number of places, 14 pounds are taken to the stone; and so on to other cases. Our present scale of weights and measures also varies with the kind of substance to be weighed or measured; thus, we have our Troy weight, avoirdupois weight, and apothecaries' weight; thus, we have our long measure, cloth measure, land measure, liquid measure, dry measure, &c.; and these have rarely any fixed relation to one another. A proper system of weights and measures should have the following characteristics : 1. They should all have a fixed relation to one another. 2. There should be only one scale of weights, one scale of size, and one scale of capacity, without any distinction with respect to the substances weighed or measured. 3. They should not only have a certain relation to one another, but they should also have some known relation to a fixed standard, depending upon some invariable law of nature, so that if the government standard of any weight or measure should be lost, it might be restored by a reference to the law of nature upon which it is founded. 4. The system of weights, as well as the system of measures, should, in order to facilitate commercial calculation, be graduated according to a decimal scale. 5. With a view of disturbing the existing system as little as possible, any new system should take as its basis the most popular and best known units in the existing system. The French system of weights and measures is one of the most perfect which has yet been adopted. A short account of this system will not, VOL. X. NO. 109. N. s. B |