Envoi

With this suggestion of compromise, of entente cordiale, instead of constant aggression by the French system against that of the British dominions and America, I close the last chapter of my work. I took to it twelve years ago for useful occupation in the leisure of approaching retirement from active life in a great seaport. But as I carried out my design I found the verge of the wide subject recede with every advance I made; every fresh field I worked showed another field beyond. A renewal of life for study, travel, observation, would be needed to enable me to carry out at all completely this history of the human mind in one of its most interesting and important aspects. But age warns me to bring my work to a close, leaving its correction and completion to younger men. Yet I hope I have been able to show the principles of unity and of diversity; and apparent confusion becomes clear when the keys of metrology are at hand. The trend of the human mind is always the same; for weights and measures are a part of the daily life of every man and woman. The rise of measurement, the naturalisation of weights and measures brought by commerce, even by conquest, when they are found convenient, the varieties caused by changes of circumstance, the deflections under the constraint of ill-advised rulers, the effect of long custom in reconciling to new standards if they can only be arranged conveniently, the shifts by which they can be made endurable, the tendency to resume the old trend along another path—all these traits of human nature are shown in this study. One thing is certain, that a wise government sanctions the measures which fit its people; its business is to maintain unity in the inevitable variety; and it should distrust the pretensions of science to dictate to men and women, to trade and manufacturers, the measures they shall use. Whether in theocratic ancient Egypt or in revolutionary modern Europe, science is a good servant of Humanity, but a bad master.

[58]. The system of the United States only differs from the Imperial system in its retention of the wine-gallon = 231 c.i. and of the corn-gallon = 268·8 c.i.; and in its rejection of the long cwt. for the cental.

[59]. For instance, in The Coming of the Kilogram (H. O. Arnold-Forster) the problem ‘How many times is 1 grain contained in 1 ton?’ is worked out in a half-page of figures. It can be done in 15 seconds, almost mentally. A cwt. is 112 lb.; a ton is 2240 lb.; multiply by 7000. Answer: 15,680,000 grains (or times).

[60]. I have even seen it put forward (in a book now before me) that our system has several bushels, indeed thirty is the number given; the ground for this assertion being that bushels of wheat, of oats, or peas, &c., are of different weights. The propagandist supposed no one would think of answering that it is the same with the Hectolitre, which contains different weights of different grains.

Conversion Tables of Metric and Imperial Measures

CentimetresGrammesKilos ⎫to 10 lb.
to Inches.to Grains.Litres⎭gallons.
1.0·393701131.15·4323561.0·22046
2.0·787402262.30·8647132.0·44092
3.1·18113393.46·297073.0·66138
4.1·57484524.61·729424.0·88184
5.1·96855655.77·161785.1·10231
6.2·36226786.92·594146.1·32277
7.2·75597917.108·026497.1·54323
8.3·14969048.123·458858.1·7637
9.3·54340179.138·891219.1·98416

Imperial to Metric Measure

1 inch= 2·54 centim.
1 foot= 30·48„
1 yard= 91·44„
1 mile= 1609 metres.
1 sq. yd.= 0·836 sq. metre.
1 sq. rod= 25·3„
1 sq. rood= 1011„
1 acre= 0·404 hectare.
1cubicinchwater252-1/4grs.= 16·38 c.c. or grammes.
1„foot„62-1/3lb.= 28 c. decim. or kilos.
1 grain= 6·48 centigr.
1 ounce= 28·35 grammes.
1 lb.= 453·59„
1 gallon= 4·536 litres.
1 bushel= 36-1/3 „
1 quarter= 2·91 hectol.
1 ton= 1016 kilos.
1 hectolitre= 2-2/3 bushels.
3„= 1·03 quarter.
1„to the hectare = 1-1/9 bushel to 1 acre.
1000 kilos to the hectare = 0·4 ton to 1 acre.
1 franc a hectolitre = 3·6 pence a bushel.
1 franc 100 kilos = 22-1/2 pence a quarter. 98 pence a ton.