Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/201

Rh crept into the weights and measures of England, they had adopted for their standard those which stood so conveniently connected through the medium of a natural element, always at hand to be appealed to.

The ounce Avoirdupois being thus fixed at the thousandth part of a cubic foot of water, the Winchester bushel, of 2,150.4 cubic inches, filled with water, would weigh 77.7 ℔ Avoirdupois, and, filled with wheat of statute quality, weighed 64 ℔. Amidst the varieties discovered between the standard weights, Avoirdupois and Troy, in their different depositories, it would be observed that all of them were a little over or under this proportion; and this would suffice to give this proportion the preference, and to fix the standard relation between the Avoirdupois and Troy pounds at that which Nature has established between the weights of water and wheat; and the Troy grain, 5,760 of which make the pound Troy, would be so adjusted as that 7,000 of them would make the pound Avoirdupois—for 7,000 : 5,760 :: 77.7 : 64. Exactly the same proportion is known to exist between the dry and liquid measures—for the corn gallon contains 272 cubic inches, and the ancient liquid gallon of Guildhall 224 cubic inches—so that the system of weights and measures, Avoirdupois and Troy, dry and liquid, are found to be in the simple relation of the weights and measures of the two obvious and natural subjects, water and wheat; that is to say, the Pound Avoirdupoise : Pound Troy :: the weight of water : weight of wheat :: the bulk of the corn gallon : the bulk of the liquid gallon; or, 7,000 : 5,760 :: 77.7 : 64 :: 272 : 224.

These weights and measures seem to have been so combined as to render it immaterial whether a commodity was dealt out by weight or measure; for the dry gallon of wheat, and the liquid one of wine, were of the same weight; and the Avoirdupois pound of wheat, and the Troy pound of wine, were of the same measure. A more natural, accurate, and curious reconciliation of the two systems of Greece and Rome, which happened to be found in use, could not have been imagined; and the extension of the connection, from weights and measures to coins, as is done so integrally by our lawful currency, which makes the penny of 6 grains of silver as was the Roman As, has completed the system.

It is true, we find no trace, either in English or American history, that these were the views which determined the relations existing between our weights, measures and moneys; but it is more difficult to conceive that such a series of combinations should have been