Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1872-05-30
The Metric System.

A movement now slowly but surely
gaining ground among the statlsticians
an1 men of science, is that which tends
to the unifcation of weights and
measures all over the civilized world, and
-presumably-the adoption ofthe French
metric system. "What," the gentle
reader may ask. is the metric system 2"
Briefly this: The circumference of our
earth, measured on meridian Of longi-
tude. is, in very rough figures, about
$4,000 miles-a quadrant. therefore, or
distant from pole to equator, 5000. The
5000 miles contain, evidently, some
30, 100000 feet, of which one tenth mil
lionth part would be three feet-one
yard. Accurately calculated, tn is quail
ity is 1887 inches, and has been adopted
since the beginning of this century by
the French and other European govern
ments as the basis of their system of
measures, under the name of metre. Let
US, for convenience sake, call this metre
forty inches, and see what further comes
| oft. 4 hundredth part of it, the cent?
metre, is just about four of an inch,
aad is u>ed in Erance for all smaller cal
| calculations il the fine arts and manufac-
turtles while scientific men, with their
minute computa tons. are familir with
tenth of this-the millimetre and its dec.
NAL subdivisions. Railroad men survey
ors use a thousand such metres under the
Greek title of kiiome.re, a little over
5000 feet or sixth tenths of one mile.
These are familiar units of length now
for measures. Let the reader be good
enough to take-or imagine-a little Gu
bical box. one centimetre CA inch) 10
cube, filed with distilled water at the
tempera' ure at which it reaches its maxi,
mum density. The weight of such water
gives the unit f weight, the gramme-
about l5z of our grains. BY the same
consistent cystem Of Greek and Latin
nomenclature, hundredth part of one Of
these grammes gives the ceutigraume
Tor chemical analysis, druggists work,
etc and thousand grammes gives the
kilogramme-or rather more than two of
our pounds for the grocers' sugar and
butter and the manufacturers heavy M.
terials. Next for liquid measures. Take
as just now, thousand of these little
gramme boxes, piled solid, or, what is
better, the space they would occupy, and
We have new cube-one decimetre in
length, breadth, ETC., whose contents in
disabled water evidently weigh the k ilo-
gramme aforesaid. The capacity of this
box, howevcr-as nearly as possible six.
ty-four cubic inches-makes the French
l'tre, or unit of fluid measure-a liberal
English quart. II we are doing a whole
sale business in fluids, we may reed the
hectolitre, Or: hundred-quart measure.
For dry measure we take cubicsl box
just one metre each way, and have the
stere roughly stated at thirty-fye cubic
feet. Marketing. evidently, would be
best done by the decistre, or 81 feet cub
ic. Housekeepe:s, who know better than
we how much space peck of peas or to-
matoes takes up, will please make the
calculations. And finally, when the far
NOR wishes to buy land he takes the ten
metre pole, and the square of which this
forms the side is his are-about 120
square yards. One hundred of these ares
give him his ordinary unit of measure.
the hecture, or two and half acres.
All this is little complicated, and
needs some figuring. but apparently, we
will have to come to it some day, and we
might as we'll begin now. Our young
friends-aud some older ,.ones-will find
it worth while to cipher it out for them
selves bit over the parlor fire. It will
be noticed that the Greek terms run up,
in mnltiplies, and the Latin ones down,
in fractions, and that we make no mon
ton of intermediate acknowledgements,
hectometres, etc, not actually much used
if at all. -ScriJmer.