indebted
perhaps to its integral form for its prevalence. The introduction
either of the troy or avoirdupois weight into the definition of our
unit, will throw that unit under the uncertainties now enveloping the
troy and avoirdupois weights.

When the House of Representatives were pleased to refer to me the
subject of weights and measures, I was uninformed as to the hypothesis
on which I was to take it up; to wit, whether on that, that our citizens
would not approve of any material change in the present system, or on
the other, that they were ripe for a complete reformation. I therefore
proposed plans for each alternative. In contemplating these, I had
occasion to examine well all the middle ground between the two, and
among others which presented themselves to my mind, was the plan of
establishing one of the known weights and measures as the unit in each
class; to wit, in the measures of lines, of surfaces, and of solids, and
in weights, and to compound and divide them decimally. In the measure of
weights, I had thought of the ounce as the best unit, because, calling
it the thousandth part of a cubic foot of water, it fell into the
decimal series, formed a happy link of connection with the system of
measures on the one side, and of coins on the other, by admitting an
equality with the dollar, without changing the value of that or its
alloy materially. But on the whole, I abandon this middle proposition,
on the supposition that if our fellow-citizens were ripe for advancing
so great a length towards reformation, as to retain only four known
points of the very numerous series to which they were habituated, to
wit, the foot, the acre, the bushel, and the ounce, abandoning all the
multiples and subdivisions of them, or recurring for their value to the
tables which would be formed, they would probably be ripe for taking the
whole step, giving up these four points also, and making the reformation
complete; and the rather, as in the present series and the one to be
proposed, there would be so many points of very near approximation,
as, aided in the same manner by tables, would not increase their
difficulties, perhaps, indeed, would lessen them by the greater
simplicity of the links by which the several members of the system are
connected together. Perhaps, however, I was wrong in this supposition.
The representatives of the people in Congress are alone competent to
judge of the general disposition of the people, and to what