Bragg, J. W.

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September, 9th 1915. WEIGHTS, MEASURES AND BALANCES By Mr. J. W. BRAGG. The study of Weights and Measures is not one which has. drawn the attention of many. Metr logy i not one of the exact sciences, although a great deal ha been written upon t he subject from time to t ime. Of the antiquity of Weights and Mea ure there i no-question; when the fingers of the hand played the part of knives and forks, and the skins of wild animals took the-place of couches, Weights and Measures were forming their-functions in the daily life of man. Of the util,ity of such functions it is, perhaps, not nece -sary to speak, but everywhere measure, weights and bal-ance must necessarily accompany commerce and science. The question whether the weight or the measure came-:fir t has not been ettled-;-prol,Jably the measure took priority in matter of time, a it seems more reasonable and more natural that the implest shoWd be :first. A between the measure of extension and the measure of capacity, the-chances are probably even. In the earliest history the need of some 'means whereby greater cer tainty of quantity could be as ured than by bar-t er at ight would become obvious; and quality in tho e day would have to look after itself; no great harm would result from this, as the fine art of adulteration is a much later product of man 's ingenuity. The 'staple commodities of life would be amongst the :first article of exchange, such as corn and wine. Corn would mo t likely be sold in heap of certain dimensions, or by the basket-full, oil and wine by the pitcher or the pot. 182 WEIGHTS, MEAS1JRE8 AND BALANCES Human nature being such as it i , the inter ests of ju t ice would quickly disclo e the neces ity of definite and uniform measures, and there must have been, at a very early date, .attempt at some form of standardisation, and in connection' with this one of the most interesting speculations arises, which is : to what source did the ancients go fo r their . tandards 1 Measures of parts of the human body were at an early " ·date requisitioned for this purpose, as is shown from numer-ous biblical references. The finger or digit, the palm, the span and the cubit, which is supposed to be the length of the fore arm-that is, the distance from the elbow to the -tip of the middle-finger-would be amongst the fil t lengths which would suggest themselves to those looking for a method of measuring. The proportions of thOe parts re-ferred to have a fixed r elationship, notwithstanding the -vari ations of the human form, that is to say :-4 Fingers or digits = 1 palm 3 P alms = 1 span 2 Spans 4 Cubits 1 cubit or fore-arm = Height of a man It will be found, upon experiment, that the ratios refer red to here are sufficiently accurate for rough and ready pur-pose . In fixing the specific value of these measures originally, probably the dimensions as eXe'mplified in the king or aver -.aged size man would be taken as a basis. The effort to find in nature a constant and inyariable stan--dard of length has not yet been su cce sful, and, with the varying f actors which must in nature nece sarily affect uch ..a standard, it is not difficult to under tand why this i o. If measures were :fir t to be introduced, and preceded weights, the balance, and consequently weight, were not far behind. WEIGHTS , MEASURl!S AND BALANOES 183 In the Book of Genesis .we read that Abraham bought the field of Ephron with its cave and weighed out th~ silver, which he had named, " 400 Shekels of Silver. " How the-earliest weight originated cannot be explained. It may be noted, however, that grain has practically alway been used as weight , and not only as weight, but as a measure, as, for instance, we know from our tables that three barley-corns make one inch. Josephus-th e historian-says that Cain was the first wealthy man; that he taught his band luxury and rapine, and broke the public tranquility by introducing weights and measures. Apparently the r esult of this introduction still <:ontinues, for most assuredly the public tranquility in this r espect has not yet been r estored,' and the want of uni-formity in weights and measures seems to be as persistent and as difficult of overcoming as any other problem. "Custom is stronger than law," and it would be diffi-cult to find a more striking example of this maxim than the tenacity with which weights and measures cling to their exis-t ence, although perhaps it is not hard to understand. They a re based upon the capabilities and the practical needs of man. We might almost say that our weights and our measures have made us, and not that we have made them. The introduction of the Metric system in F rance, the first g reat break from t radition, in a metrological sen e, though opportune, was attended with enormou difficultie , and the <:hange even there is not absolute yet. It is not intended to discus the relative merits of the I mperial and Metric systems of weight and measure , and perhaps it is sufficient to say that, to part with the inch, the pint, and the yard would be to part with old fri ends. that have served and are serving us well. Still, it must be ad-mitted that , if the Imperial y tem i to hold its own, it will have to prove its right to exi t against the more convenient system of calculation, which is the property of the Metric system of weight. and mea ures. 184 W)!IGBTS, MEASURES AliD lIAI,ANOES The Mina. Our 'Ystem of weights h' been traced by some to the-• Babylonian "MINA" by means of ancient weights now in exi tence, and which date back to 2000 B.C. One of the most interesting of these MANER or MINA weights i now deposited at the British Museum; it is a green-stone-weight, of conical form, foUnd in Egypt, and it weighed 15,097.6 grains. It bears an interesting cuneiform inscrip-tion, which has been translated -as follows :-' 'One maneh standard weight, the property of Merodach-sar-ilami., a duplicate of the weight which Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, the son of Nabopolazzat, King of Babylon, made-in exact ' accordance with the deified weig?lt of Dungi, a former king." The ystem of Ancient Assyrian and Babylonian weights, from which the Greek system of weights has been considered to be derived (as mina or maneh ) , has been de cribed by Layard (' Di coveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Baby-lon, " 1853 ) , and the derived weight of one mina appears sometimes to have approximated to the weight of an avoir-dupoi pound. The scene repre ented her e is from an Egyptian papyrus entitled " The Book of the Dead." The soul of the de-part d is being weighed in the balance against a feather , " Anubus" conduct the hade before the god to r eceive-judgment. The date of the papyrus is 1350 B.C., and is the mo t ancient illustration of the balance known. This picture was discovered upon an Egyptian tomb-stone by Lepsius. It is supposed to pourtray the weighing of bar of silver or gold, and it may be noted that the-weight are in the form of a bull 's head. The exact date is unknown, but certainly it can be placed long before the-commencement of the Christian era. It will be noticed also that this specimen, and the preceding one, are e ven-armed balances, and it may be as erted with some confi-WEIGHTS. MEASURBS AND BALAN CBS 185 dence that this is the earliest type of weighing in trument. It is remarkable that, at the pre ent time, after a lap e of thousands of years, the even-armed balance is still pre-eminent, being the simplest in construction, and conse-quently the best in re ults. F ew in trument have a bet-t er record for persi tence of form, the difference between the ancient and modern balance being found in detail and material, and not in principle of construction. The readiness with which an even-armed balance can be made will be seen from the specimen on the heet. The beam comes from India, and is simply a rounded wooden pole pierced in the middle and near each end with holes. It will be noticed that the holes neal' the extremities do not pass right through the beam, but are curved to i ue in the upright end face and sides. This arrangement i in-genious, as it t ends to bring the end bearing into line with the centre bearing, which is one of the conditions of the sensitiveness of the balance. Such a balance could not be recommended for testing tandard weights, but it would answer very well where one i not particular to half a brick. This fine fellow was being used by a farmer in the Wet Riding of Yorkshire in 1890, and although it was unjust into the bargain, remonstrance would not satisfy the far-mer that it would not meet the requirements of the British Weight and Measures Act, 1889. It was good enough for .his 'father, his grandfather, and his grea" grandrathel', ltherefore it was good enough for him. To overeome his ,;onservatism the power of the law had to be invoked. Acts 'of Parliament having no regard for the poetry of life, the luckles farmer was fined, and the magistrates ordered the !orfeitur e of the scale to the local Department of WeightS and Mea ures. The balance is put to some curious uses. In Morocco, for instance, water for drinking purposes is always sold by weight. The water-carrier parades the street with his goat-M 186 WBlGHTS, MEASUR BS AND "BALANOBS kin of water slung acros his back, clanging a bell, and when elling he allow the water to flow into one of the cale-cup until the beam stands level. The cup i then handed to the purchaser, who drinks direct, alway leaving a mall quantity in the cup, which is used to rinse it out o that it may be cleaned for the next user. The u ual price of a cup of water is one " floos, " about the I-20th part of our penny. In the summer, rich Moors often pay for a whole skin full, and then give the man orders to go round the town ('rying, " Free water for all." A modern Assay Balance, which, when loaded with 1 gramme, will turn to the 1/ 200 of a milligramme, wh' ch is, approximately, 1/ 14,000 of a grain. This gives an idea of the marvellous degree of sensitiveness which has been reached in the construction of balances of precision. The movements of the indicator are r ead through the magnify-ing glasses, which can be seen in the illustration. As already stated, it is almost certain that the even-.armed balance was the first type of weighing instrument to be brought into use. The introduction of the uneyen-.al'med balance, or steelyard, is generally credited tv the Romans, hence the term "Roman Balance," by which this form of instrument is also widely known. That rich ~­pository of antiquit ies, Pompeii, has given to us specimens of this appbance as used in the days of 2QOO years ago. Most of these specimens are stored in the Museum. " 'SOl! bonico, " in Rome. From the illustration here shown · it will be noticed that the poise-weight is in the form of a man's head, and is really artistic. This is another Roman steelyard, and the chains support-jng the pans are a particularly fine piece of work. WEIGHTS, MEAPURBB AND BAL ANOBS 187 r his is the common teelyard- of the present day. There i no mistaking it re emblance to it prototypes, but the beauty has departed. In thi connection, as in many -others, "appearances are de.ceptive." There i no doubt that the modern appliance gives very much better r sults than its more handsome ance tor . The apparent advan-tag s of this cIa s of scale are its portability and it avoid-ance of the use of standard weights. This is a Japanese teelyard. The beam i of ivory, and is carefully graduated. The supports of the pan and of the poise weight are of thread, and the whole fits into a 'small wooden box which can easily be carried in the pocket. It is used for weighing drugs and precious metals, and the results it gives are, all things considered, wonderfully ac-Cluate. This form of balance has been known to China and Japan for centuries, and it is possible that the far Orient, .as some have maintained, may lay claim to the introduction -of the steelyard. This picture r epresents some weights in the form of goats, unearthed at Pompeii. Again it will be observed that utility and artist ic design were more generally associ-.ated in ancient times than they are now. Travelling down the centuries and coming nearer home, there is still the same dearth of information. Excavations of Roman sites in our country have brought to light a few ar ticles bearing' on the subject, but nothing anterior to the Pompeiian specimens shown ha been found. The beam and pans of an even-armed balance seen in this p icture wcre discovered in a Viking's grave in the Island of Colonsay, Argyllshire, and are now exhibited in the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh. From the date of a coin found with them the scale is supposed to be of the ~rst century. Of our measures of capacity, the oldest unit would ap-pear to be the Winchester Bushel. It was so called because King E dgar (958 A.D.-975 A.D. ) or dered it to be kept I SS WBI GHTS, MBASURBS AND BALANOBS there. . This is the Winchester Standard Bushel of H enry 7th, and it served as a model for the standard which was made by command of Queen Elizabeth. The Winchester Bushel of Queen Elizabeth continued in force until t he introduction of the Imperial System 111 1824. The Winchester Bushel contains 2150.42 cubic ins. The Imperial Bushel contains 2219.7 cubic ins. Therefore, the Winchester Bushel equals 0.96879 of an Imperial Bushel. The Winchester Bushel is at the 'present day the unit of capacity for cereals in the United States, and, although in England it is now illegal for trade purposes, its use in the fixing of corn rents is not absolutely obsolete. An Act of 1670 (Charles 2nd) enacted that a standard bushel of correct measure should be chained in the market rlare of all market towns ill order that persons might t est their measures. I n view of this piece of legislation, the picture which comes next is particularly interesting. It represents a bushel measure which, until a f ew years ago, was in the lumber room of the Weights and Measures Office of the City of Birmingham, and 'which was not per-haps regarded with the veneration it deserved. You will observe. that it is marked with a crown, 1674. and C. 11. The inscription on it is : "Samuel .Marrow, Lord of the Manor of Birmingham. " There i little doubt that this measure was the ~mtcome of the Act of 1670. Thi is another ancient measure, and is a good specimen of the Winchester Bushel. Formerly there were three separate gallon mea ures in use--the Win chester Corn Gal-lon, the Wine Galion, and the Ale Galion-ali of slightly different capacity. These were abolished by the introduc-tion of the Imperial Sy tem in 1824. W EIGHTS, MEASUREti AND BALAN01l8 ]89 The variations between .these various me/isures will be seen from the figure here shown. The Standard Wine Gallon of Queen Anne, which repre--sent the Wine Gallon as used from the earlie t time , and is the standard f rom which t~e measures of the Uniteu States appear to have been determined. It is, r oughly, five-sixths of our present gallon, and is divided, as with ns, into 4 quarts and 8 pints. It will be, therefore, spen that the liquid measures of the U.S. do not now agree with those ·of the Imperial System. This is a picture of the Ancient Stirling J ug or Scotch Pint; it holds about half a gallon, and is therefore some-thing like four times as large as the pre ent pint. The Scotch Choppin, or Half-pint, 1555 A.D., and is .amongst the collection in the Municipal Buildings in Edin-burgh. One of the great drawbacks to the Imperial sy tem i the fact that there are three distinct and eparate series of weights-the avoirdupois, the troy and the apothecaries. The exact period of the introduction of these series into this country is not known. The earliest reference to the Troy weight is in a statute of H enry II, and there is ~vidence which tends to show that standards of Avoirdu-pois weights existed in the time of Edw:ard III. The weights mo t likely to remain intact and unaltered would be those weights used for precious tones and drug ; and in thi connection it is worthy of note that the P harmaco-paeia of 1851 gives the weights and measures authorised t o be u ed by Apothecarie with the same name a were used in the time of Hippocrates, 460-357 B.C. The terms are of Greek origin, and are still used by doc-tors in their pre criptions, although more than 2000 years -old. 190 WlIIGHTB, M1IASURi8 AND BAL AN01lB Pondera. Libra Uncia Drachma Scrupulus Granum. Mensurae Congius Octarius Fluid Uncia Fluid Drachma Minimum. This is an illustration of'a 14-lb. Brass Standard W eight (1,495 ) of the t ime of H enry VII. It bears the words "Henricus Septimus" in high r elief, the Tudor Rose on one side and the We tminster P ortcullis on the other. The por tcullis is still part of the stamp used by the Board of Trade to mark instruments verified. under the Weights and Measures Acts. The specimens shown here are pre erved at the Royal Mint, Tower H ill, London . The larger set are standard Troy W'eights of Queen E lizabeth, and dated 1588. The small one (to the right) is the Standard Troy pound of George III., and of date 1774. At the back is an ancient tally stick. The tally stick has been in use in all countries, and in all ages, for keeping short and simple accounts. The fal IDcation of the account is guarded against by splitting . the tally in t wo through the notches, the debtor taking one half and the creditor the other, I n the English Exchequer tallies were used from the Norman ·Kings until 1785 to r ecord the debts of the State, the half of the tally given to the lender being called the "stpck," and the other half r etained in the Exchequer the " counterstock. " These tock were negotiable, and when redeemed were fastened to their corresponding counterstocks and deposited in the. Tr easury. In 1 35 the tallies accumulated in the Ex~he­quer were burned, by order of the Gover nInent, in the stove of the House of Lords, a proceeding, it is -said, that caused the fire which destroyed the H ouses of P arliament. The Queen Elizabeth et has a really graceful and royal appearance, differing greatly in this r espect from the exist-ing standards. Of course, ornamental designs may be more 

Weights, measures and balances

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Weights, measures and balances

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