The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-01-29
The Decimal System In Weights and
Measures.


The Decimal System In Weights and
IL Measures.
During the past session of Congress
bills were passed authorizing the use
of the decimal system in weights and
measures, directing the Secretary of
the Treasury to furnish the Governor
of each State with set of standards,
authorizing the Postmaster General
to introduce the system into the Post
Office. The new fve-cent piece IS
made upon this system, both in weight
and diameter, being five grGnanaes in
weight, and five of them laid side by
side on fat surface are a decinaeter
in length Most nations with which
we have commercial intercourse have
adopted the system already, and it
will much simplify international
business when we can all conform to
the system, which is taken from the
French. Only four tables are needed,
besides those of money and time, in
stead of the confusion of tables IN
our ordinary practice. Within
short time this will take the place of
the old weights and measures. The
Fairbanks Scale Company now manu-
facture large quantities of scales
graduated ON this system. New
arithmetics are putting in the
tables as a special advantage to
crown their merits, though SO me
older ones-Ray's Hirher, for
example - have had these for
years past. Chicago proposes to buy
grain by the Genital or hundred pounds,
and will be quite likely to make a
further change and use a unit for
new weight Now a quart of beans, a
quart OF beer and quart OF molasses
are three different measures, though
few who use them know how great a
difference there is. They are 81 Is,
704, and 564 cubic inches, respective
ly. How much more convenient and
satisfactory to use the liter for all
such purposes. This is little more
than the wine quart. Then we can
judge better why berries seem so diff
ferent in our purchases, as we make a
variation of almost % per cent, ac-
cording to the cup used in dealing
them out to us. A few hours will en-.
able pupil to master Reduction, now
so formidable part of our arithme-
tics; in fact, the learning of four
tables is all the extra work required,
as all the practice will then be as easy
as Federal money.
The French mathematicians calcu-
lated the earth's circumference, then
an arc from the equator to the pole,
and subdivided this into 100000
parts for the meter or unit of length,
which is about 1897 inches The
Latin prefxes deci, cent?, mill, mark
the subdivisions, and the Greek nu-
merals deka, hectic, kilo, mark the
multiples. A length of ten meters,
squared, gives the are, the unit of
surface. The weight of cube of dis
titled water, centinleter in length on
each edge, gives the gram, the unit of
weight The liter, the unit of meas
ure of capacity, is the contents of a
cube whose edge is decimeter in
length.
The sooner the pupils of our schools
understand this the better, as the ad-
option of these is already legalized,
and their use will rapidly gam. No
teacher need wait for books on the
subject to put in the hands of his pu-
pills, but can add in some general ex-
ercise, these explanations to the COM
mon text books, or consult little
book just published by j B. Lippin-
colt & Co., of Philadelphia, entitled
the s'Metric SYSTEM or see the : II
linois Teacher for the month of No
vember. The tables are as follows:
N7i MEASURES OF LENGTH