An attempt toward obtaining invariable measures of length, capacity, and weight, from the mensuration of time / [John Whitehurst].

  • Whitehurst, John, 1713-1788
Date:
1792?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt toward obtaining invariable measures of length, capacity, and weight, from the mensuration of time / [John Whitehurst]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/86 (page 2)
    able inequalities, thefe feem to have fruftrated the mod fagacious attempts to obtain invariable meafures, and to have reduced the feveral ftates and empires to the neceffity of adopting arbitrary meafures, according to the dictates of their own imaginations, without any foundation in the nature of things. It is therefore obvious that weights and meafures, being thus derived and eftablifhed, can have no more relation or agree- ment with each other, than the languages of the feve- ral nations by whom they were adopted; and their being divided into a diverfity of fmaller parts, renders them flill more incoherent and embarraffing to thofe nations who have any intercourfe in matters relative to fcience, or commerce. See the tables annexed. For although their relative proportions may be truly known, whereby the quantity of fpace, magni- tude, or weight, afcertained by the meafures of one nation, may be found correfpondent to a certain num- ber of meafures of another, yet it muft be owned that fuch operations not only demand an expence of time, but are alfo liable to error. It is therefore evident, that the diverfity of weights and meafures eftablifhed by different nations, is no final 1 impediment to the progrefs of fcience and commerce. Weights © I