WEIGHTON, or MARKET-WEIGHTON, a market-town of the east riding of the county of York, in the wapentake of Harthill, 192 miles from London and eight from Beverley. It chiefly consists of one long street, with a few of less appearance leading from it. It has a good corn market on Wednesday, and a canal communication with the Humber through the Ouse. The population amounted in 1821 to 1724, and in 1831 to 1821.
By weight, or, as some call it, the measure of weight, is meant the apparent force or tendency which any body or commodity has to descend; and which, owing to the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation, and the buoyancy of the air or other medium in which the operation of weighing is performed, is somewhat less than its real force, the latter being always proportional to the intensity of gravity multiplied by the mass weighed. Accurate weighing is of great importance, since in general it affords one of the best practical means of ascertaining the quantity of matter in bodies, and thence the values of the greater part of the necessaries of life. But although, in most cases, the buoyancy of the medium may have some effect, however small, it is evident that any difference in the intensities of gravity, or of centrifugal force in different latitudes, or even on different planets, can, ceteris paribus, make no difference on the weights of bodies as obtained by counterpoising; but the weight, when indicated by the force or resistance of a spring, will, ceteris paribus, be proportional to the intensity of gravity. The term measure in the present article more properly applies to the three following kinds of magnitudes, sometimes called geometrical: 1st, linear extent, such as the length or other linear dimensions of bodies; 2d, area, surface, or superficial extent; 3d, the bulk of bodies, or the solid space occupied by them, and which, when spoken of the vessels which measure or contain them, is called their contents or capacity. This article then is meant to treat of the usual standards of weights and measures, by comparison with which the amount of any article or commodity is ascertained, whether in the ordinary affairs of life, the more extensive transactions of commerce, or where greater nicety is required in the arts and sciences. Anciently standard weights or counterpoises were generally of stone, though sometimes of metal. At present mostly all
the smaller standard weights are made of some metal possessing such a composition and hardness as may be less liable to be worn or corroded, counterfeited or altered; and one of the best is a mixture consisting principally of copper and tin. The larger weights are generally of iron, though sometimes of stone. The more accurate standards of length are likewise of metal, but the larger sort is very generally of wood: chains, cords, and tapes are also used. The nicer measures of capacity are formed of metal or glass, but the larger and more common sort is mostly all of wood. After what immediately follows on the equalization of the standards in the British empire, by the late Dr Thomas Young, and his very compendious general table, we have added a more particular though brief account of the principal weights and measures at present used in different parts of the world.
The preparation of the bill for ascertaining and establishing Uniformity of Weights and Measures, which passed the Imperial House of Commons in the session of 1833 (though without having been then carried through the House of Lords), had given occasion for a laborious and somewhat painful examination of the historical progress of the measures which have been taken respecting it, and especially of the laws of England respecting uniformity of practice in different parts of the country; for such a uniformity, though generally esteemed by all governments a thing to be encouraged and enforced, had often seemed to be no more subject to the control of legislative enactment than the introduction of a uniformity of language and a grammatical accuracy of speech would be found in every part of an extensive empire.
Augustus is said to have endeavoured in vain to force a new Latin word into the language of ancient Rome: the
French, on the other hand, after all their labours to recommend a uniform system of measures, have ended in such a complication, that, for the most simple purposes of practical mechanics and civil life, it is become usual to carry in the pocket a little ruler, in the form of a triangularism, one of the sides containing the old established line and inches of the royal foot, a second the millimetres, centimetres, and decimetres of the revolutionary school, and the third the new ultra-royal combination of the Jacobin measure with the royal division, the inches consisting of the 36th part of a metre, or the four millionth of a degree of the meridian of the earth. If such occurrences as these be calmly considered, they will make us more disposed to diminish than to increase the number of penal statutes intended to compel the inhabitants of the different parts of a country to study their own convenience conjointly with that of their neighbours, and to spare themselves the necessity of a few arithmetical operations in the course of every market-day; and we shall feel that it is not incumbent on a wise government to endeavour to facilitate both the attainment of correct and uniform standards of legal existing measures of all kinds, and the ready understanding of all the provincial and local terms applied to measures, either regular or irregular, by the multiplication of glossaries and tables for the correct definition and comparison of such terms.
Measures have apparently always been derived, in the first instance, from some part of the human person. A foot, a pie, a fathom, the orgyia or stretch of the arms, a cubit, a palm, and a finger; these have probably all been used in the earlier states of society by each individual from the magnitude of his own person; and afterwards a standard measure has been established by authority from the state or supposed magnitude of the person of some king or hero, in order for the attainment of more perfect uniformity in practice; though it is said, that in some parts of the East the Arabs still measure the cubits of their cloth by the fore arm, with the addition of the breadth of the other hand, which serves to mark the end of the measure, as the thumb which was formerly added at the end of the yard of the English clothiers. It ought not however to be forgotten, that any one of these terms possesses an advantage for popular use, and for the convenience of future ages and remote countries, which would be lost by the introduction of any more arbitrary measurement. Thus a hand's breadth, or a foot, is always sufficiently understood, without any definition, to enable us to form to ourselves a tolerably accurate picture of the magnitude intended to be described; and there is scarcely an instance of the caprice of denomination having ever extended so far as to make the measure called a foot in any country so small as half a natural foot, or so great as two feet of an ordinary person, and certainly not of its amounting to three ordinary feet; while a metre, even to those who know that the word implies a measure, might as well have meant a mile, or an inch, or a quart, as a length somewhat greater than a yard.
The idea of accurately verifying the standard of a country by any other means than that of a comparison with some actually existing original, can scarcely have occurred, except in a very advanced period in the progress of civilization. It was indeed enacted in the time of our Henry the Third, that an ounce should be the weight of 640 dry grains of wheat taken from the middle of the ear, that a pound should be twelve ounces, a gallon of wine eight pints, and eight gallons of wine a bushel of London; but this seems rather a direction for making a single standard than a mode intended for the continual verification of the standard in case of any minute uncertainty. Again, in a statute of Henry the Seventh, a gallon of corn was mentioned as containing eight pounds of wheat: and this may perhaps serve to explain the origin of the two different
gallons. But the substitution of an original standard derived from an object of definite magnitude, exterior to the human person, seems to have been reserved for the days of the French revolution, though it has since been adopted in an improved form by the introduction of a foot equal to of the pendulum vibrating seconds, as a representative of the customary foot of the kingdom of Denmark. (Quarterly Journal of Science for 1821, Astr. Coll. No. V.)
The Royal Society, under the presidency of Mr Folkes, made some very accurate comparisons of the English, and French, and old Roman standards, which are recorded in the Philosophical Transactions for 1736, 1742, and 1743; and George Graham, the eminent watchmaker, determined at the same time the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds to be 39.130 inches; but the standard with which he compared it requiring some reduction, it was afterwards ascertained that the length, as derived from these experiments, ought to have been more nearly 39.14 inches.
A committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1758, of which Lord Carysfort was chairman. Their Report contains some important information respecting the standards then in use. They found that the customary ale and beer gallon of the Excise was estimated at 282 cubical inches, while the legal wine gallon of the Exchequer was computed at only 231, though the only existing standard of the wine gallon in 1688, which was kept at Guildhall, contained no more than 224 cubical inches. They suggested the adoption of this smaller gallon for the legal standard, perhaps as being more favourable to the revenue, though the gallon of 231 inches had been previously legalized by the act of the fifth of Queen Anne; and they employed the well-known Mr Bird to prepare two standards, which were to be exact copies of that which was made by Graham for the Royal Society in 1742, from a very careful comparison of the various yards andells of Henry the Seventh and Elizabeth, which were kept in the Exchequer. One of the copies was marked "Standard Yard, 1758," and was presented by the committee to the House with the intention that it should be adopted as the legal standard; the other was made "with checks" for common use, and proposed to be kept in the Exchequer.
A subsequent Report of a committee appointed in 1759, consists principally of proposals for some legislative regulations, tending to facilitate the equalization of weights and measures by the establishment of proper methods of checking and authorizing the standards to be employed. In 1765, two bills were brought into the House of Commons by Lord Carysfort, in conformity with the Reports of the committees; but, from some accidental circumstances, they were not passed into laws.
Another committee was appointed in 1790; but no minutes of their proceedings have been recorded. In 1814 however a very important Report was presented to the House by a new committee, who had called upon Dr W. Hyde Wollaston and Professor Playfair for their opinions on the subject; and it was principally in consequence of these examinations that the committee stated that the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds had been ascertained to be 39.13047 inches, and that the metre of platina measured, at the temperature of 55°, 39.3828 English inches, representing at 32° the ten millionth part of the quadrant of the meridian. They remarked with great truth, that although in theory the original standard of weight is best derived from the measure of capacity, yet in common practice it will generally be found more convenient to reverse this order; and they recommended, upon the suggestion of Dr Wollaston, that a gallon containing ten pounds of pure water should be adopted as a substitute for the ale and corn gallons, which had become different rather from accident than from any direct legislative authority, the one containing a little more than ten pounds, the other