WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. Of the earliest standards of length the prin cipal were the palm or handbreadth, the foot, and the cubit (from elbow to tip of mid-finger). There were two leading cubits: the natural cubit in Egypt, Chal dea, Phoenicia, and Greece=6 palms=2 foot=18.24 inches; and the royal cubit of Memphis, found also in Babylonia and Chaldea=20.89 inches. The Greek foot (=12.16 inches) passed into Italy and was there divided into 12 unci (inches) ; it was afterward short ened, becoming as small as 11.65 inches. The Romans used a 3-foot ulna. The Sax ons used an ell or yard of 36 inches, based on the Roman foot. This was continued by the Normans in England, various modifications occurring in the ell. Henry VII. and Elizabeth made standard yards of 36 inches: Henry's was 35.924 inches of the present standard; Elizabeth's was about 1-100 inch more than the present yard. In 1742 the Royal Society of Lon don made a standard 42-inch scale; in 1760 Mr. Bird made for a Weights and Measures Committee of the House of Commons a copy of an old yard measure found in the Tower. In 1824 (5 Geo. IV. chap. 74) this copy was legalized as the standard yard, with the direction that in the event of its being lost, the standard was to be recovered by making the length of a mean-time seconds pen dulum in the latitude of London, in a vacuum at sea-level equal to 39.1393 inches. In 1834 the standard was de stroyed in the fire at the Houses of Par liament. In 1838 a committee was ap pointed under Mr. Airy, astronomer royal; in 1841 they reported against the accuracy of the pendulum method; in 1843 they were appointed as a com mission to restore the lost standards; this they did between 1843 and 1854 by taking the best secondary evidence, and they produced a standard bar of gun metal, the distance between two lines on which, crossing two gold studs, is one yard, at 62° F. and 30 inch bar. pressure. This was legalized as the standard by 18 and 19 Vict. chap. 72. The weights and Measures Act of 1878 (41 and 42 Vict. chap. 49) regulates the law, ren ders all old local or customary weights and measures, other than imperial ones, illegal, and enacts penalties on false and unverified weights and measures vary ing from $25 to $250.
Two-thirds of a cubit, we have seen, made a "foot"; a "cubic foot" of water weighed a talent. When the "foot" was
2-3 the royal cubit, the talent was 655, 566 grains; this was the Egyptian, Hebrew, and Olympic monetary talent, later known as the great Alexandrian talent of brass and the Egypto-Roman talent. A talent half this weight was known as the Alexandrian talent of silver, or 327,783 grains; this was divided into 60 minas of 5,463 grains each; these are the origin of the Saxon moneyer's pound of 5,400 grains=Mint pound or Tower pound=old apothecaries pound of Germany; one such pound, in silver coins, was the original form of "one £ sterling," and was divided into 20 "shillings," or 240 "pence" or penny weights; each pennyweight was divided into 32 monetary grains (wheat grains), each equal to 0.703125 modern grain. The Tower weight was abolished in 1527. The Saxon ounce contained 416.5 grains =nearly, Roman uncia=1-12 libra; the libra (=5,015 grains) was the Greek Asiatic and Persian mina of 5,015 grains. The Troy pound is 5,760 grains =12 ounces of 20 pennyweights each. Troy weight is now restricted to gold, silver, and jewels, except diamonds and pearls; the latter are weighed in carats (=3.1683 grains), which were originally .is the Alexandrian ounce (the twelfth part of the mina of silver). Various larger pounds were early used for mer chandise; in 1303 the "avoirdupois" pound (=7,000 grains) was in use. The Troy pound standard made by Mr. Bird in 1758 for the Weights and Measures Committee was legalized in 1824; in 1834 the standard was destroyed; the Standards Commission replaced troy weight by avordupois, and the standard pound is a mass of platinum weighing 7,000 grains in vacuo, copies of which are distributed as in the case of stand ards of length. The standard of capac ity is the gallon, which was in 1824 ad justed so as to contain 70,000 grains, or 10 pounds avoirdupois of water at 62* F. and 30 inches bar. pressure; this gal lon occupying 227.274 cubic inches, in stead of the old Winchester gallon of 274% cubic inches. The French or metric system of weights and measures is based on the decimal system. (See METRIC SYSTEM.) The metric system was legal ized in the United States on July 28, 1866, when Congress enacted as follows: