Illustrated history of the United States mint / with a complete description of American coinage, from the earliest period to the present time

by Unknown

Standard Weights.

The earliest series of standard weights now known, are two sets discovered by Mr. Layard in the ruins of Nineveh. They are now in the British Museum. William the Conqueror decreed the continuance, as the legal standard, of the pound in use by the Saxons. This and other standards of weight and measure were removed by the King from the City of Winchester to the Exchequer at Westminster, and placed in a consecrated building in charge of his chamberlains. The place of deposit is said to have been the crypt chapel of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey. In 1866 the office of Exchequer was abolished, and the Standards Department of the Board of Trade was established in London, assuming charge of the standards—an arrangement still in force.

The old Saxon pound was the earliest standard of England. It was identical in weight with the old apothecaries’ pound of Germany, and equal to 5,400 of our later Troy grains. The pound sterling was determined from this weight in silver. Henry III., in 1266, decreed the following standards: The sterling, or penny, to weigh equal to thirty-two wheat corns, taken from the middle of the ear; twenty pence, one ounce; twelve ounces, one pound; eight pounds, one gallon of wine, which is the eighth part of a quarter. The idea of the grain was borrowed by the English from the French, and the Black Prince brought back with him from France the pound Troye, which was derived from the commercial town of that name. The use of the Troy standard was adopted by the druggists and jewelers, on account of its convenient reduction into grains.

The pound avoirdupois, weighing 7,000 grains Troy, (Fr. Avoir-du-poids, “to have weight”), first appears in use during the reign of Edward III., and it, as well as the Troy pound, has been employed without change ever since. In the year 1834 the English standards of weight and measure, consisting of a yard and pound Troy of brass, were destroyed by fire at the burning of the Houses of Parliament. A few years later a commission of scientific men was appointed to determine upon the restoration of the standards. This resulted in a succession of difficult problems resultant upon the oxidation to a greater or less extent of duplicates of the standard still existing, as also of the variation of the cubic inch of water, as in use in different lands. A cubic inch of distilled water, weighed in air against brass weights, at a temperature of 62 degrees Fahr., the barometer being at 30 inches, had been determined by scientific men to be equal to 252.458 grains, of which the standard Troy pound contained 5,760.

As the unit of length was also lost, a series of experiments was made in the vibration of a pendulum in a vacuum, marking seconds of mean time in the latitude of London at the level of the sea. These deductions, however, failed to be satisfactory, and the commission was compelled to fall back upon the best preserved of the duplicate standards existent. The Imperial Standard Pound is declared to be the true weight of an avoirdupois pound in a vacuum. It is a curious fact that the Imperial standards of platinum (which metal is not subject to oxidation), although balancing brass weights in a vacuum, weigh in air more than one-half a grain heavier than the latter. This is due to their greater displacement of space.

The unit of weight in the United States is a Troy pound weight obtained from England, a duplicate of the original standard fixed by the commission of 1758, and reasserted by the commission of 1838. It is a bronze weight of 5,760 grains Troy. It is kept in a strong safe at the United States Mint, in Philadelphia. The President appoints an assay commission, whose members meet at Philadelphia annually, upon the second Wednesday in February, open the safe, and compare the copies, or the working weights, with the original upon the most delicately poised balances. Working standards of weights and measures are supplied by the Secretary of State to the State governments, which in turn supply them to the sealers of weights and measures of the various countries, who must compare with the State standard once a year.

TROY STANDARD POUND WEIGHT.

Fac-simile, exact size.

All of the scales and delicate test instruments in use by the government, not only in Philadelphia Mint, but at the several branch mints, are manufactured in this country, and as examples of wonderful mechanical machines of minute accuracy they lead the world. Some of them are the work of Mr. Henry Troemner, of Philadelphia, to whom, it is proper to say, the writer is largely indebted for the facts given in this article. Mr. Troemner, in the capacity of government expert, makes frequent visits to the most distant points in the Union for the verification of national standards. The Treasury Department made an especial request of him to exhibit at the New Orleans Exposition, a line of his fine balances.