Delaware state journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1870-1883, 1872-06-15

movement now slowly bat surely
gaining ground among statisticlans aud
men of science, Is that which tends to the
uniRcation of weights and measures all over
the civilized world, nd-presumably--the
adoption of the French metric system.
What, the gentle reader may ask, "ls
the metric system " Briefly this. The
circumference Of our earth, measured on a
meridian of longitude, Il, In very rough
figures, about $4,000 mlles-a quadrant,
therefore, or distance from pole 10 equator,
G,000. These Z, 900 miles contain, evidently,
some 10000, 900 feet, of which one ten
milliOnth part would be three fcet-one
yard. Accurately calculated, this quantity
is 39.37 inches, and has been adopted since
the beginning of this century by the French
aud several other European governments
as the basis of their system of measure,
under the name of metre. Let
ms, for convenience sake, call this
metre forty inches, and see what further
comes of II. A hundredth part of It., the
cCttimetre, is just about four-tenths of an
inch, and is used In France, for all smaller
calculations in the flne arts and manufac-
lures; while scientific men, with their
minute computations, are familiar with Il
tenth of this-the Hlilinletre and its decimal
subdivisions. Railroad men and surveyors
use thousand such metres under the Greek
title of kilODlstre, little over 5000 feet, or
six-tenths of one mile. These are the fa-
miliar units of length; now for measures.
Let the reader be good enough to take-or
magine-a little cubical box, one cent?
metre A inch) In cube, filled with distilled
water at the temperature at which IL
reaches its maximum density. The weight
| of such water gives the unit Of weight, the
| gramme-about 15l9 of our grains. By the
| mo nouufafnna avcfnrn of Graal and Latin
nomenclature, hundredth part of one of
these grannss gives the centigrapnls, for
chemical analysis, druggist work, etc.i
and thousand grammes gives the kilo-
| gramme-Or rather more than two Of our
| pounds-for the gnocers' sugar and
butter, and manufacturers heavy ma
terials. Next for liquid measures.
Take, as just now, "a thousand ofthese little
gramme boxes, piled solid, or, what is be-
ter, the space they would occupy, and we
have a new cube-one decimetre In leLsti
breadth etc, whose contents in dslll., 4
water evidently weigh the kiogram -
aforesaid. The capacity of this box, ho -
ever-as nearly as possible sixty-four Gu
bic inches-makes the French litre, or u'it
of fluid measure-a liberal English quart.
If we are doing whoeaale fluid business
we may need the hectolitre, or hundred
quart measure. For dry measure we taks
a cuical box just one metre each way,and
have the stere, roughly stated at thirty-five
cubic feet. Marketing evidently would be
best done by the decistere, or 81 feet cu-
bic. Housekeepers, who know better
than we how much space a pecs of
potatoes or peas takes up, will please IN Ike
their own calculations. Aud finally, wpen
the farmer wishes TO buy land he takes a
ten metre pole, and the square Of which
this forms the side is his are-about 100
square yards. One hundred of these ares
give him his ordinary unit of measure, the
heciare, or two and half acres.
All this is a little complicated, and needs
some figuring, but, apparently, we VIII
have to come To 1t some day, and might as
begin now. Our young friends and some
iues-wIll ind it worth Wide to cipher it
out for themselves biz over the parlor
are It will be noticed that the Greek
terms run up, in muliipies, aud the Latin
ones down, IN fractions, and that we
/ make no mention OF intermediate terms
decagrammes, hcctometres, atc, not &C,
tpally much used II at sll.-SerisgT's for
SWne,