What circumstances of the times, or purposes of barter or commerce, called for this combination of weights and measures, with the subjects to be exchanged or purchased, are not now to be ascertained. But a triple set of exact proportionals representing weights, measures, and the things to be weighed and measured, and a relation so integral between weights and solid measures, must have been the result of design and scientific calculation, and not a mere coincidence of hazard. It proves that the dry and wet measures, the heavy and light weights, must have been original parts of the system they compose—contrary to the opinion of the committee of 1757, 1758, who thought that the avoirdupois weight was not an ancient weight of the kingdom, nor ever even a legal weight, but during a single year of the reign of Henry VIII.; and, therefore, concluded, otherwise than will be here proposed, to suppress it altogether. Their opinion was founded chiefly on the silence of the laws as to this weight. But the harmony here developed in the system of weights and measures, of which the avoirdupois makes an essential member, corroborated by a general use, from very high antiquity, of that, or of a nearly similar weight under another [(6.)] name, seem stronger proofs that this is legal weight, than the mere silence of the written laws is of the contrary.

Be this as it may, it is in such general use with us, that, on the principle of popular convenience, its higher denominations, at least, must be preserved. It is by the avoirdupois pound and ounce that our citizens have been used to buy and sell. But the smaller subdivisions of drachms and quarters are not in use with them. On the other hand, they have been used to weigh their money and medicine with the pennyweights and grains troy weight, and are not in the habit of using the pounds and ounces of that series. It would be for their convenience, then, to suppress the pound and ounce troy, and the drachm and quarter avoirdupois; and to form into one series the avoirdupois pound and ounce, and the troy pennyweight and grain. The avoirdupois ounce contains 18 pennyweights 5½ grains troy weight. Divide it, then, into 18 pennyweights, and the pennyweight, as heretofore, into 24 grains, and the new pennyweight will contain between a third and a quarter of a grain more than the present troy pennyweight; or, more accurately, it will be to that as 875 to 864—a difference not to be noticed, either in money or medicine, below the denomination of an ounce.

But it will be necessary to refer these weights to a determinate mass of some substance, the specific gravity of which is invariable. Rain water is such a substance, and may be referred to everywhere, and through all time. It has been found by accurate experiments that a cubic foot of rain water weighs 1000 ounces avoirdupois, standard weights of the exchequer. It is true that among these standard weights the committee report small variations; but this experiment must decide in favor of those particular weights, between which, and an integral mass of water, so remarkable a coincidence has been found. To render this standard more exact, the water should be weighed always in the same temperature of air; as heat, by increasing its volume, lessens its specific gravity. The cellar of uniform temperature is best for this also.

Let it, then, be established that an ounce is of the weight of a cube of rain water, of one-tenth of a foot; or, rather, that it is the thousandth part of the weight of a cubic foot of rain water, weighed in the standard temperature; that the series of weights of the United States shall consist of pounds, ounces, pennyweights, and grains; whereof

COINS.

Congress, in 1786, established the money unit at 375.64 troy grains of pure silver. It is proposed to enlarge this by about the third of a grain in weight, or a mill in value; that is to say, to establish it at 376 (or, more exactly, 375.989343) instead of 375.64 grains; because it will be shown that this, as the unit of coin, will link in system with the units of length, surface, capacity, and weight, whenever it shall be thought proper to extend the decimal ratio through all these branches. It is to preserve the possibility of doing this, that this very minute alteration is proposed.

We have this proportion, then, 875 to 864, as 375.989343 grains troy to 371.2626277; the expression of the unit in the new grains.

Let it be declared, therefore, that the money unit, or dollar of the United States, shall contain 371.262 American grains of pure silver.

If nothing more, then, is proposed, than to render uniform and stable the system we already possess, this may be effected on the plan herein detailed; the sum of which is: 1st. That the present measures of length be retained, and fixed by an invariable standard. 2d. That the measures of surface remain as they are, and be invariable also as the measures of length to which they are to refer. 3d. That the unit of capacity, now so equivocal, be settled at a medium and convenient term, and defined by the same invariable measures of length. 4th. That the more known terms in the two kinds of weights be retained, and reduced to one series, and that they be referred to a definite mass of some substance, the specific gravity of which never changes. And 5th. That the quantity of pure silver in the money unit be expressed in parts of the weights so defined.