The Opelousas courier., 1884-06-07
Intention Of Scales.

In the ancient Egyptian belief the
hearts OF all the dead were weighed be-
fore Osiris in the hall of Perfect Justice,
and a papyrus re presenting the ritual for
the dead, preserved in the British muse
UNI, pictures the ceremony of the weigh
ing !" for good or evil" and incident
ally affords an excellent view Of the
scales of early Egypt. In these scales
the balance beam is neither suspended by
the center, as in the modern form, nor
after the manner of the ~steeiyard, but is
arranged with a shifting fulcrum. the
Adjustment of whichshows the difference
between the weights Of two objects. The
weights used were of metal in the form
of rings, and it may be said in general
that this was the prevailing type of all
early weights. These scales, it will be
observed, are by no meansof the simplest
form, or that which would naturally
first suggest itself to mankind, and
this fact argues the employment
and gradual improvement of weighing
apparatus long anterior to the date of
this papyrus 1850 B. CD We have no
knowledge of tleir earliest invention or
forms. The discovery Of their uses has
been attributed to many geniuses, and
doubtless with something of truth in the
individual cases. Pling credits them to
Phidon of Argos, Gellius says that Pasa-
medes invented them, and a host of
writer's following III their wake, each
crowns his own particular inventor with
the honor. Among others
"Juno pours out the urn. and Vulcan claims
The scales as the JUS pro tuct of his iames.n
But certain it is that they have been
known and tried from time immemorial.
Their known existence, however, dates
back very far, and puts to the blush the
fictitious origins attributed to them.
When in 1860 BIC. Abraham weighed out
400 shekels of silver as the consideration
for the first real estate transfer of which
history makes mention, he used them,
and they are frequently referred to in the
Bible, in Zechariail, Levitious, etc. The
earliest scales were temporary, simply a
beam balance in astirrup, the weights be-
ing arbitrary and varied, though as above
stated, usually in the form of metal rings.
In ancient Egypt they were strictly
under the superintendent of the priest
hood, and so continued until that people
came under the Roman sway. They were
kept in the public markets, as was also
the practice in Greece and modern Egypt.
The larger scales were constructed on the
same principle of the beam and stirrup,
with the addition of a fiat board or plat
form suspended from each end of the
beam by -four ropes or chains.
In all scales accuracy and the quality
of turning under the slightest possible in
equality in balancing weights are the
highest desiderata, and 10 great has been
the perfection obtained by means of knife
edges and agate planes in some of the
finer scales that the declaration to Shy
lock that
= = s1f the scale turn
But in tile estimation o. a hair,
Thou diest,n
would be robbed Of its terror. The
English mint is said to possess a scale
which turns at q 10, GOO, 600 of the
weighing capacity.
In oil ages the scales have been the
emblems of justice, and it is to be hoped
that the latter has kept pace with the i'm
proyements Of its emblems.-nduatrsas
World.