Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/49

Rh In England, for example, immense loss would be occasioned by rendering unintelligible all the maps of the Ordnance Survey, which has been going on for over a hundred years, all of which are scaled to miles, of so many feet or inches to the mile. The Russian foot is identical with the English foot, and thus it happens that that unit is the most widespread linear measure of the whole world. For this we are offered something inconvenient, and inapplicable to all our conditions. Mr. Ranken, in his interesting essay previously mentioned, thus alludes to this feature of the case: "It would mean the stultifying of all our deeds and land records, and the revision of deeds, re-casting of areas, and very probably re-measurement of property would involve the public in enormous expense. The professional men who advocate the metric system quite forsee this—that it will make work. In fact, in the journal of a scientiﬁc institute in Sydney, that was one of the most potent and convincing arguments in favour of its adoption. But why should we disturb a scientific, and, from a British point of view, an almost universal, area in favour of a clumsy, unscientific French measure. There is probably more land surfaces measured, deeded, bought, and sold in terms of the acre than of any other unit."

Private landed interests would not be the only ones touched. In the various divisions of Australasia have grown up huge Crown Lands Departments, which come into personal touch with purchasers of land. As vendors of real estate, immense sums have been expended by them on various classes of surveys, and other similar work. Then there are charts of our coasts, maps of our roads and railway lines, and records of various kinds, all of which would have