In the whole of this no change is proposed, except an insensible one in the troy grain and pennyweight, and the very minute one in the money unit.
II. But if it be thought that, either now, or at any future time, the citizens of the United States may be induced to undertake a thorough reformation of their whole system of measures, weights and coins, reducing every branch to the same decimal ratio already established in their coins, and thus bringing the calculation of the principal affairs of life within the arithmetic of every man who can multiply and divide plain numbers, greater changes will be necessary.
The unit of measure is still that which must give law through the whole system; and from whatever unit we set out, the coincidences between the old and new ratios will be rare. All that can be done, will be to choose such a unit as will produce the most of these. In this respect the second rod has been found, on trial, to be far preferable to the second pendulum.
MEASURES OF LENGTH.
Let the second rod, then, as before described, be the standard of measure; and let it be divided into five equal parts, each of which shall be called a foot; for, perhaps, it may be better generally to retain the name of the nearest present measure, where there is one tolerably near. It will be about one quarter of an inch shorter than the present foot.
- Let the foot be divided into 10 inches;
- The inch into 10 lines;
- The line into 10 points;
- Let 10 feet make a decad;
- 10 decads one rood;
- 10 roods a furlong;
- 10 furlongs a mile.
SUPERFICIAL MEASURES.
Superficial measures have been estimated, and so may continue to be, in squares of the measures of length, except in the case of lands, which have been estimated by squares, called roods and acres. Let the rood be equal to a square, every side of which is 100 feet. This will be 6.483 English feet less than the English [(7.)] rood every way, and 1311 square feet less in its whole contents; that is to say, about one-eighth; in which proportion, also, 4 roods will be less than the present acre.
MEASURES OF CAPACITY.
Let the unit of capacity be the cubic foot, to be called a bushel. It will contain 1620.05506862 cubic inches, English; be about one-fourth less than that before proposed to be adopted as a medium; one-tenth less than the bushel made from 8 of the Guildhall gallons; and one-fourteenth less than the bushel made from 8 Irish gallons of 217.6 cubic inches.