Weights and measures

“ There are few who have any adequate grasp of the momentous issues involved in determining upon what foundation our system of weights and measures should rest. Much has been written upon the subject. To the great bulk of the people it might as well never have been penned—they know nothing, or practically nothing, of it, and the little information which has reached them has often been of a misleading or negative character. ”

“ Herbert Spencer has pertinently asked, “By whose advice is it that the metric system of weights, measures, and values is to be adopted? Is it by the advice of those who spend their lives in weighing and receiving payments for goods? Is it that the men who alone are concerned in portioning out commodities of one or other kind to customers, and who have every minute need for using this or that sub-division of weights or measures, have demanded to use the decimal system? ”

“ Weights and Measures.—The French metric system is the official standard of weights and measures and is in use in the custom-houses of the republic and in foreign trade, but the old units are still commonly used among the people. ”

“ No purchaser is bound to accept goods by weight or measure other than those of the Imperial standard, but bargains entered into upon the basis of the weights or measures of the metric system are valid, according to a fixed scale of equivalent Imperial weights and measures. ”

“ The purpose of standards embraces the principle of uniform weights and measures. The law of weights and measures determines what shall constitute a pound or a gallon, and requires that when a pound or a gallon is contracted for the substance delivered shall weigh or measure according to the contract. ”

“ Weights and measures.—Another important growth in the machinery of trade is found in standards of quantity,—weights and measures of every kind. It is scarcely possible to realize the uncertainty of exchange without exact weights and measures. ”

“ The reasons for the failure of this colossal effort of a century to change the textile weights and measures of France is not difficult to find. The ideas of length, area, volume and weight are as firmly grounded as any that find a lodging in the mind of man. They are bound to the records of the past, to the work of the present, and to the plans for the future. They are ineffaceably imprinted upon the mind of every child to regulate his ideas of extension and weight as long as life may last.
These natural conditions are alone sufficient to account for the failure of the metric system in France. ”

“ The third way is what one does in weights and measures, and that may be in three ways. The first when one has diverse weights or diverse measures, and buys by the greatest weights or by the greatest measures, and sells by the least. ”

“ It would be purposeless to review the many futile attempts which have been made in the United Kingdom to obtain legislative sanction to the compulsory introduction of the metric system of weights and measures. ”

“ Tables of RELATIVE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES are of value to the housewife in that they will assist her greatly in coming to an understanding of the relation that some of the different weights and measures bear to one another. For example, as dry foods are sold by the pound in some localities, it will be well for her to know the approximate equivalent in pounds of a definite quantity of another measure, say a quart or a bushel of a certain food. ”

“ General Remarks In the various names of weights and measures there are many general-utility words which offer no difficulty in the sphere of those who use them habitually, yet which are sometimes puzzling to others, while they are interesting to the student of semantics. They form a chapter in the history of weights and measures, itself a volume in the history of the human mind. ”

“ Every man can claim to deal according to the standards of length, of weights, and of capacity. Most certainly the introduction of the metric system would largely add to the use of illegal weights and measures, not only locally, but generally. ”

“ Care is then taken to have standard measures and weights prepared in such a way as to be free from all effects of any change of temperature, and legal enactments distinctly define each measure and weight, actually punishing one for the crime of using false weights or measures. Units of quantity thus enter into all our calculations and form an essential basis of all exchange. Cheating in measure and weight grows less and less possible with this clear understanding of exact units. ”

“ Analysing the question, and his words have not since been improved upon, he said—"The French metrology, in the ardent and exclusive search for an universal standard from nature, seems to have viewed the subject too much with reference to the nature of things, and not enough to the nature of man. Its authors do not appear to have considered the proportions dictated by nature between the physical organisation of man and the unit of his weights and measures. The standard taken from the admeasurement of the earth, has no reference to the admeasurement and power of the human body. ”

“ Bright that people who know what life means, can sustain the calamity of the inspection of their weights and measures with fortitude. I myself keep a tea-and-sugar shop. I have had my scales and weights inspected more than once or twice, and am not in the least disposed to bid my native land good-night on that account. ”

“ To the common mass of the people the use of weights is in the market and the shops. The article weighed is to be carried home for the daily subsistence of the family. Subdivisions of the pound, the half, the quarter of a pound, are often necessary to conciliate the wants and the means of the neediest portion of the people, that portion to whom the justice of weight and measure is a necessity of life, and to whom it is one of the most sacred duties of the legislator to secure that justice, so far as it can be secured by the operation of human institutions. ”

“ Teacher’s Note.—If a meter can be used, very exact problems can be worked out with gas and electricity.
[9] Teacher’s Note.—These experiments may be performed as each food material is used. In this case a page should be kept in the notebook for the table of weights and measures, and each observation recorded as it is made. It may be that the perishable articles will not be on hand, except as they are used in order. The weighing and measuring should be dwelt on all through the course. ”

“ French Weights and Measures Abolished.—Often needed in reading older works.
Rhineland foot, much used in Germany,=12·357 in.=the foot of the Scotch or English cloth ell of 37·06 in., or 3 × 12·353. (H. J. C.)
II. Ancient Historical
Though no line can be drawn between ancient and modern metrology, yet, owing to neglect, and partly to the scarcity of materials, there is a gap of more than a thousand years over which the connexion of units [14] of measure is mostly guess-work. Hence, except in a few cases, we shall not here consider any units of the middle ages. ”

“ Weights and measures, as the invisible and spiritual means by which material possessions are estimated and determined for man, according to their value, are holy unto the Lord, a copy of His law in the outer world, taken up by Himself into His sanctuary ”

“ And that the inhabitants of all cities, boroughs, and market towns within every of the said shires, shall on this side of the feast of the nativity of Saint John Baptist next coming, make or cause to be made, common measures and weights, according to the weights and measures abovesaid, to remain within the said cities, boroughs, and market towns, and every of them ; and the same weights and measures to be viewed, examined, printed, signed, and marked by the mayor, bailiff, or other head officer, in whose possession the aforesaid standard shall remain ”

“ He completed the investigations of Sir George Augustus William Schuckburgh Evelyn [q. v.] into the weights of a standard cube, cylinder, and sphere, by ascertaining their dimensions, in view of the approaching report of the commissioners of weights and measures. ”

“ When you have a system, you must think it as well as be able to write it. We have got into the habit of thinking in pounds and yards and gallons—by the mention of one or the other a definite idea is conveyed. ”

“ But, as we have already stated, the measures of weight must be subject to this condition, that they are susceptible of being added: and therefore we cannot take the deflexion of the bough for our measure, till we have ascertained, that which experience alone can teach us, that under the burden of two equal weights, the deflexion will be twice as great as it is with one weight, which is not true, or at least is neither obviously nor necessarily true. ”

“ In the gradation of real weights, measures, and coins, it is important to adopt those grades which are most convenient, which require the least expense of capital, time, and labor, and which are least likely to be mistaken for each other. What, then, is the most convenient gradation? The base two gives a series of seven weights that may be used: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 lbs. By these any weight from one to one hundred and twenty-seven pounds may be weighed. ”

“ So far as scientists are concerned, generally they use the metric system, and are in no way hindered in calculating by any method they select. They are indifferent to the units of retail trade, the pecks, pots, and pounds, or the quarters, eighths, and sixteenths of daily weighing and measuring. Professional men must, however, use a system having accordance with commercial measures, and these measures, to be convenient, must possess appropriate modes of subdivision at almost every point where every branch of trade may require one. ”

“ Instead of our complicated denominations of money—namely, pounds, each containing twenty shillings, these each divisible into twelve pence, and these again into four farthings—we want a scale in which ten of each denomination would amount to one of that immediately above it, as in our notation. And instead of our complicated system of weights and measures, we want one similarly graduated system—each measure and weight rising ten times above the former. All calculations of prices would then be made by simple multiplication. ”

“ The knowledge of how much it costs to clothe a child will teach them more practical arithmetic than any amount of extraction of the square root, and give an interest to their tables of weights and measures besides. ”

“ Introduce the metric system, and there would be an upheaval—the tailor, the bootmaker, dressmaker, butcher, baker, anyone and everyone engaged in trade; everyone who is a buyer, who is a seller, would have to revise not only his arithmetic but his appliances. ”

“ Greedy of territory to enhance their wealth, and jealous of their power, these provincial capitals throughout the ages had left no stone unturned to extend their influence in every possible direction and bring under their economic control as much land as possible, a fact which is abundantly proved by the highly diversified system of weights and measures throughout the land deliberately drawn-up to serve as economic barriers. River-courses, mountain-ranges, climate and soil, no doubt assisted in governing this expansion, but commercial and financial greed was the principal force. ”

“ One reason of the great accuracy of weighing with a good balance is the fact, that weights placed in the same scale are naturally added together without the slightest error. There is no difficulty in the precise juxtaposition of two grams, but the juxtaposition of two metre measures can only be effected with tolerable accuracy, by the use of microscopes and many precautions. ”

“ England and America will adopt the metric system at nearly the same time; neither alone can get along without it.
Early in the thirteenth century it was enacted under Henry III. that there should be uniformity in the weights and measures throughout the realm, and a little later it was determined that measures of capacity should be based upon weights. Soon afterwards weights were established upon the weight of grains of wheat, as follows: 32 wheat grains = 1 penny (pennyweight) ; 20 pence = 1 ounce; 12 ounces = 1 pound; 8 pounds = 1 gallon; 8 gallons = 1 London bushel ”

“ Every country has national standards of measures and weights which are made and kept by the governments as patterns, for measuring and comparing the instruments made for business purposes. The units of measure have been fixed by law, for it is most important that people and countries in dealing with each other shall know exactly what is meant by such words as yard, foot, pint and pound. ”

“ He tried hard to procure a unification of coinage and weights and measures, but failed owing to the opposition of the estates, who were afraid of the new taxation necessary to meet the loss involved in raising the standard of the coinage, and who held to their local measures and currency partly from conservatism, partly as a relic of local liberty. ”

“ The dimensions fixed by the statute were, for cloth of ray (supposed to mean striped cloth) , 28 yards in length by 6 quarters in breadth; and for coloured cloth, 26 yards in length by 61⁄2 quarters in breadth. The regulation of weights and measures within the kingdlom was a proper subject of legislation, and had necessarily engaged attention long before this date; although, at a period when science was unknown, the methods resorted to were necessarily very inartificial, and sometimes singular enough ”

“ Its use is legalized in Egypt, Great Britain, Japan, Russia, Turkey and the United States. In 1875 there was constituted at Paris the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which is managed by an international committee. ”