The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-08-27
Correspondence of the Pacific Com. Advertiser.l

Correspondence of the Pacific Com. Advertiser.l
HILLS OF MAUI, Aug. 18th, 1857.
Mr.. EDITOR Being somewhat interested in the
watch spring question, and a good deal amused too,
at the manner of viewing it, by the various parties,
I ask you to show it up once more.
In the tables of British weights one pound Troy or
Apothecaries' weight contain each II ounces of 480
grains. Grains do not apply to Avoirdupois weight,
any more than feet and inches, apply to chains and
links.
Walsh's Mercantile Arithmetic gives 69994 grains
equa1 to one pound Avoirdupois, and ". 7. Brande's
Dictionary gives 1000, which is nearly the same. A
pound of feathers is heavier than q pound of gold,
and an ounce Of silk is lighter than an ounce of silver.
The pound Troy and Apothecaries' is only 1417,
nearly, of the pound Avoiriupois, but the ounce Troy
and Apothecaries' is greater than the Avoirdapois in
proportion of 70 to Y. Troy weight is used only for
JEWELS, gold, silver, and liquors. Apothecaries'
weight only for compounding medicines, and all such
commodities as are coarse and subject to waste, and
al metals, except gold and silver, are weighed by
Avoirdupois.
The man who prepared the I" ITEM was wrong in
applying grains to steel. If he had said that the hair
spring of a watch weighed the 1925 part of an ounce.
(Which would be 0 1000 to the pound) he would have
been correct. Or if he had said that the hair spring
of q watch was equal in weight to about the Ii part
of a grain it would have done.
Now don't you come down on my calculating
machine, for it is not out of joint, and it is back geer
and selfacting too. CYMoN.
"Cymon'' is mistaken when ne says that 'grains
do not apply to Avoirdupois weight" Because an
acre of land is not measured by feet, is no reason
that there are not a given number Of feet in q survey
or's chain, with which the survey is made.
Grains apply to Avoirdupois weight, whenever it is
necessary to resort to them to obtain the portion Of a
pound of any article usually weighed by that weight,
though generally it is not necessary. Steel is one of
those articles, and when it is required to reduce a
pound of steel to grains, they must be supplied.
Hence we find this table of Avuirdapois weight in
some of the English Arithmetios:
a1 d s srsln: nss' I a ps.s.
16 ounces " ] pound.
. quarters e sssa''d weight
The above make 7O00xgrains to the pound. But
at this rate it would require seven and one-seventh
watch springs. Here, perhaps, is the mistake in the
item. 1t should read OLA Of a grain instead of OILS.
If this correction is made (and we take the liberty of
making it) the item will read thus:
The spring of q watch weighs OLA of a grain; a
pound Of iron Cor steel) makes $4,000. The pound
Of steel costs 3D.. n single spring, I'd. so that 81, 200
springs produce E4l6.
The problem as stated above gives seven and one
seventh springs chair springs Of course) to one grain.
and as a pound contains 1000 grains, the product is
$4,000.
We hope none AZ our readers who have puzzled
themselves over the watch springs. will have the brain
fever on that account. The correction, if correct,
only shows what lies figures viii sometimes tell. We
would say in conclusion that the item was printed as
we found IL and have sinoa noticed IL in other ;onr-
mails, enormously printed 0.15, as We had it.