I find he has ceased to twitter, and has put his
head under his wing. Therefore, in my different
way I follow the good example.

AT YOUR FINGERS' ENDS.

OUT of the fact that uncivilised man reckons
with his fingers, and has ten fingers to reckon
with, has arisen a numeral system, or machinery
for counting, with the number ten at the bottom
of all its arrangements. Every time we multiply
by ten, we add simply a round 0,—1, 10, 100,
1000, &c. To divide by ten we have only to cut
off the last figure; to divide by 100 we have only
to cut off the two last figures, calling any surplus
they may represent, so many parts of a tenth or
hundredth; whereas in the arithmetic of everyday
life, as it now stands, we are continually
working sums out by an act of calculation
resting upon every figure, also, if we are duly
careful, running over each of our calculations twice,
as safeguard against error, and thereupon if we
find error, running over it all a third time to
ascertain which of the two differing calculations was
the right one. All this trouble we give ourselves
artificially, by using measures of value, weight,
and capacity, that are not in accord with the
method of counting. Let us measure and weigh
by tens, as we count by tens, and we may rub
every trace of vulgar fractions off the slates of
our National scholars, and set free for more
useful knowledge half the time now spent in learning
by heart confused or complex tables, and in
the practice of long arithmetical processes that
no longer touch on the real business of life.
We do not this only. France and other countries
of Europe having preceded us, Russia and others
having declared themselves ready to follow, if
we follow, the good example that has been
already set, the whole mass of waste labour in
conversion of foreign into English or English
into foreign measures, will be done away with,
and a great hindrance to international commerce
will be destroyed. Between French and English
houses, great mistakes are sometimes made in
ordering and executing orders, and where those
mistakes have not been felt there is very often
enough doubt and hesitation about measures of
quantity to turn the scale against relations with
the stranger.

The original measures were as naturally chosen
as the original ten fingers for counting. The
length of the foot, of the step or pace; of the
fore-arm from the elbow, the ell; of the space
from the end of tbe long finger of the out-
stretched arm to the middle of the breast, the
yard; or from tip to tip of the two outstretched
arms, the fathom; of the thumb joint, the inch;
have from time immemorial been the foundation
of all civilised systems of measurement. In the
most ancient times, rough measurement sufficed.
Every man took the size of his own foot, arm,
or stride. With the growth of commerce came
demand for uniformity, and fixed dimensions
were assigned to the commercial foot, and hand,
and stretch of arm, and thumb. In the same
way something in nature of a tolerably uniform
size was roughly taken as the basis of a system
of weights. It was only in the reign of Henry
the Third that an ounce was defined as the
weight of six hundred and forty dry grains of
wheat taken from the middle of the ear, and a
pound as twelve ounces. Afterwards the weight
of a fixed measure of water became the standard.
Given a fixed quality to the water by distillation,
and no better standard of weight is to be
desired. As to the original measures, men
differ so far in size that we need not lose sight
of the original foundations of a system of
measurement more than we have already done
in the adjustment of our measures to a system
meant to become universal, calculated to some
unvarying standard, that can always be
referred back to and ascertained with scientific
accuracy.

It was in France, in the revolutionary days—
and discredited for some time by its revolutionary
origin — that the perfecting of the system of
weights and measures first received vigorous
attention. In seventeen 'ninety, when King
Louis the Sixteenth, at the beginning of the
second act of the great drama of the revolution,
was tamed to the will of the dominant National
Assembly, and when that assembly, which
included many enthusiastic doctrinaires, had
appropriated church lands, divided France into
departments, remodelled the judicature, and
abolished parliaments and titles of honour, in
that year 'ninety, one of the acts of the submissive
king was to give effect to the result of a
decree of the Assembly concerning uniformity
of weights and measures. It was the decree
for an assembling of delegates from the French
provinces, at Paris, to meet the secretary of
the French Academy of Sciences and an equal
number of members of the Royal Society of
London, for the purpose of determining, for
use as a standard of measure, the length of the
pendulum vibrating seconds at the latitude of
forty-five degrees, or any other latitude that
might be chosen in preference; but, from the
unsatisfactory relations between England and
France, the English savans did not attend. In
England, nearly half a century before, George
Graham, the watchmaker, had determined the
length of the pendulum vibrating seconds to be
thirty-nine inches and thirteen hundredths of an
inch. In subsequent inquiries on this subject
a committee of the House of Commons referred
to standard measures made by Graham for the
Royal Society in seventeen 'forty-two. In seventeen
'ninety, when the National Assembly passed
its edict, the Royal Society did appoint a
committee to consider the subject of standard
measures which, as there is record of the fact of
its appointment but not of its transactions, may
have taken some part in the discussions on the
subject that had been appointed to take place
at Paris. But the French king's proclamation
of the twenty-second of August, having recited
the decree of the previous eighth of May, went
on to ordain the issue and distribution of
elementary books in the departments for the ready