WEIGHTS AlsID MEASURES. We shall first describe the English weights and measures as they stood on the last dvf of the year 1825, immediately before 'se introduction by law of the Imperial Measures, with some remarks on their states at different times.
Troy Weight. — The pound is 12 ounces ; the ounce is 20 pennyweights ; the pennyweight is 24 grains. The pound is 5760 grains. There is but one grain in use, whether troy or avoirdupois, and a cubic inch of pure water is 252.458 grains (barometer 30 inches, thermometer Fahr.). A cubic foot of water is 75.7374 pounds troy. Only gold and silver are measured by this weight. It is usual to say that precious stones are also measured by troy weight ; but, as may be supposed, the measure of these is the grain. The diamond is measured by carats of 1514 to the ounce troy ; so that the carat is 34 grains, very nearly. In pearls, the old foil measure Still exists; for the pearl grain is one-fifth less than the troy grain.
Apothecaries Weight.—In dispensing medicines, the pound troy is divided into 12 ounces, the ounce into 8 drams, the dram into 3 scruples; consequently each scruple is 20 grains. But in buying and selling medicines wholesale, averdu pois weight is and always has been used. The fact seems to be that in the first in stance the more precious drugs, as musk, were weighed by troy weight, in the same manner as the more precious metals; and that the common medicines were dis pensed by fractions of what was then the common pound.
Apothecaries' Fluid Measure. — In 183e, in the new edition of the Phar macopceia,' the College of Physicians prescribed the use of the following mea sure :-60 minims make a fluid dram ; 8 fluid drams a fluid ounce; 20 fluid ounces a pint. For water this is actual weight as well as measure, since the im perial pint is 20 ounces averdupois of water ; but for other liquids the fluid ounce • must merely be considered as a name given to the 20th part of a pint. The minim of water is as nearly as pos sible the natural drop ; but not of other substances, the drops of which vary with their several tenacities.
According to Dr. Young (who has re duced them from Vega), the apothecaries' grains used in different countries are as follows :-1000 English grains make 1125 Austrian, 956 Bernese, 981 French, 850 Genoese, 958 German, 978 Hano verian, 989 Dutch, 860 Neapolitan, 824 Piedmontese, 864 Portuguese, 909 Roman, 925 Spanish, 955 Swedish, 809 Venetian.
Averdupois Weight.—The pound is 16 ounces, and the ounce 16 drams: the modern pound is 7000 grains (the same as the troy grains) ; whence the dram is 27 grains and 11-32nds of a grain. The hundredweight is 112 pounds, and the ton 20 hundredweight. The cubic foot of water is 62.3210606 pounds averdn pois. The stone is the 8th part of the hundredweight, or 14 pounds. The ton of shipping is not a weight but a measure, 42 cubic feet, holding 24 hundredweight of sea-water. Down to the statute of Geo. IV. the averdupois pound varied a little, according to the notion of the writer : Dil worth makes it 69994 grains ; Dr. Robert Smith, 7000 grains ; Bonnycastle, 69994 grains. That act declares " that seven thousand such grains shall be, and they are hereby declared to be, a pound avoir dupois." Long Measure.—Three barleycorns make an inch, 12 inches a foot 3 feet a yard, 54 yards a pole or perch,* 40 poles a furlong, 8 furlongs (1760 yards) a mile. Also 2* inches are a nail, 3 quarters of a yard a Flemish ell, 5 quarters an English ell, 6 quarters a French ell. A pace is 2 steps, or 5 feet ; a fathom is 6 feet. The chain is 22 yards, or 100 links ; 10 chains make a furlong, and 80 chains a mile. The barleycorn is now disused, and the inch is sometimes divided into 12 lines Cas in France), but oftener into tenths or eighths. The yard is frequently called an ell in old books ; commonly, Recorde says. Mellis says that both the yard and the ell were divided each into 16 nails. A goad is an old name for a yard and a half. The hand (antiently handful), used in measuring the height of horses, is fixed at 4 inches by 27 Henry VIII. cap. 6. The furlong is probably a corruption of forty-long, from its forty poles.