The Treasury Department immediately started constructing new necessary weights and measures for the customs service. For this purpose, the Treasury Department had to choose standards, and the standard yard adopted was the 36 inches comprised between the 27th and the 63rd inches of the Troughton scale. This 36-inch space was supposed to be identical with the English standard at , though it had never been directly compared with that standard. The original English standard, in turn, was made in 1758, but was then damaged beyond the point of usability in a great fire of 1834.