The proper manner of afcertaining and preferving the knowledge of ancient weights and measures is by ftatutory record; and therefore fuch tables as have been mentioned would be the best manner of fuch a record.

It is not propofed, nor is it indeed poffible, to extend fuch tables to every barony, or to every parish, although there are differences of weights and measures almost in every parish and barony in this kingdom. This would be an unneceffary minutenefs; for although fuch differences do exift, yet they are often very small, and their proportions to the county weights and measures are generally known within the county: therefore, if the medium of counties or large districts of counties be taken as near the truth as can eafily be gor, it would fufficiently answer the different objects of the law, and the feveral purposes of commerce.

To accomplish even this, is a work of time; but is far from being impoffible. Till it is done, it may be prognosticated, from past experience, that an act for uniformity would not probably have effect. The advantage of fuch a law is fo great, that it is to be hoped the fame public fpirit which carried the matter fo far in the year 1765, and by which the true ftandards were actually made, and are now in public cuftody, will be revived, and this great commercial object brought to complete maturity.

But though thefe hopes may be distant, in so far as concerns the obtaining one new complete act for fettling the ftandards, and enforcing uniformity, in place of the various laws now in being; yet certain it is, that judges and magiftrates have, by the prefent law, a great deal in their power for enforcing uniformity to the prefent tandards. Thefe laws are intricate only by their multiplicity; and the execution of them is difficult for want of fuch tables of converfion as have been above described. Magistrates have it in their power to employ fit perfons to make fuch tables, and to perfect them by degrees (for they cannot be completely done at once), and afterwards to circulate them for public ufe. So foon as fuch tables fhall come to be publicly known and understood, the talk of the magistrate will be more than half done. Seeing the benefit of uniformity, most people will be defirous to embrace it; and fhould there be a few obtinate, and tenacious of old cuttoms, they will be carried with the tide, and can have no pretence for complaining fhould they be compelled to lay bad customs afide.

The object of this paper is to show, that a great deal may be done by the prefent laws; and to fuggett what appears to be the fimplest and easiest method of carrying them into execution. This would be of great confequence in the mean time, and might pave the way for a new and compete act of parliament, if not for Great Britain, at least for this part of it.'

Our ingenious and accurate Author proceeds to point out the feveral acts that have been made in Scotland for regulating weights and measures. It appears that in the year 1617, great pains had been taken for reducing all weights and meafures throughout Scotland to an uniformity; for which end a ftandard ell for regulating measures of length was made, and * Scotticifm.

C 4

committed

committed to the cuftody of the town of Edinburgh; a standard pint jug for regulating liquid meafures was depofited in Stirling; a ftandard firlat for dry meafure was committed to the care of the magiftrates of Linlithgow; and a standard stone weight to Lanerk: exact duplicates of all which measures were carefully depofited in the king's exchequer at Edinburgh, and it was ordained that all merchandife fhould be bought and fold according to these standards, under very fevere penalties.

Thus ftood the law before the Union in 1707. It had good effects, in fo far as it clearly established what were the ftandard weights and measures: but as care was not taken to afcertain and publish the proportions which the customary weights and measures bore to the ftandards, the former were not laid afide; and it could not be otherwife. Even the ufe of the Trone weight, though exprefsly discharged by the act of 168, was continued as before.

The diversity of the whole at this day, not only in the different counties, but in different parts of the faine county, is well known, and appears in a striking light in the annexed tables.

By the 17th article of the Union, in 1707, it was enacted, "That the fame weights and measures shall be used throughout the united kingdom as are now eftablished in England; and that ftand. ards of weights and measures fhall be kept by thofe boroughs in Scotland to whom the keeping the ftandards of weights and measures does of fpecial right belong: all which fandards fhall be fent down to fuch boroughs from the standards kept in the exchequer at Westminster, &c."

They were fent down accordingly; and they added to the number of our different weights and measures, but did not fuperfede any of them; probably for the reafon above given, that no pains was taken to make the people in general acquainted with their proportion to the Scotch weights and ineafures.'

He then mentions fome glaring inftances of misconduct in the legislature, by enacting laws directly fubverfive of that uniformity aimed at in the 17th article of the Union, for which we think no apology can be offered.-Shame! that our lawgivers fhould be fo ignorant, or carelefs, as to pay no attention to a circumftance of fuch capital importance to the nation!

He concludes the introductory part of the work with fome obfervations on the moft proper means of enforcing the prefent Jaws fo as to obtain an uniformity of weights and measures in Scotland, which he thinks might, in a great measure, be effected without the aid of any new law. We fuspect that a new law will be neceffary, were it only to give a fresh spur to those who ought to fee the laws put into execution. It is certainly a defect in the British conftitution, that more effectual means are not adopted for executing the laws that are enacted; for it is from this circumftance that laws are unnecessarily multiplied, and trefpafles more common. It is not, fays the emprefs of Ruffia, the feverity of the punishment, but the cer

† Another Scotticifm. The Writer means prohibited.

tainty of it, which prevents crimes.-With equal justice may it be faid, that it is not the multiplicity of ftatutes, but the due enforcing of them, that establishes order in a ftate.

The greatest part of the volume before us confifts of tables for reducing the different weights and measures employed in Scotland to one common standard; and this is naturally divided into two parts. The first confifts of general tables of the standard weights and measures in England and Scotland, and the proportions they reciprocally bear to one another; the fecond, of tables fhewing the contents of the feveral provincial weights and measures, and the proportion they bear to the legal standards.

That our readers may have a clear idea of the great utility of this work, we fhall collect, for their fatisfaction, an abstract of the account here given of the feveral measures of capacity, which go under the fame denomination in different parts of the country: these are indeed much more diverfified than we could eafily have imagined.

The boll is the common term employed as an unit for meafures of capacity in Scotland. But we have already fhewed that there are two fizes of the ftandard boll,-one for barley, oats, and malt; the other for wheat, peafe, &c.-It appears that this diftinction is univerfally adhered to through all Scotland. We fhall only exhibit the variations of the first of these bolls.

The ftandard boll being 100, the other county bolls will be as under: Aberdeenshire boll

109.677 Bamfshire

105.103

104.838

Argylefhire, Campbeltown

128.709

Caithness shire

106.280

(Byle and Carrick

The certainty of punishment,' please to note that, ye who fo frequently (through mistaken lenity) interpofe between the judgment of the law and its due execution; and fo often, to the irreparable detriment of the Public, turn afide the hand of justice!

+N. B. In fome parts of this county the wheat boll is 15.808 per cent, better than standard; in others it is 2.135 per cent. less than standard.

↑ N. B. The wheat boll in this county is 52.941 per cent. above ftandard.

The wheat boll in this county is 16.63 per cent. above ftandard.
The wheat boll in this county is 202,184 per cent, above standard.

Forfarfhire

104.459

While fuch different measures go under the fame name (and the fame diverfity is obfervable in all other weights and measures), it muft occafion great confufion in the ideas that different perfons form of the price of different kinds of grain, and the amount of the produce of different fields, when these subjects are mentioned in converfation, or in books; an attempt therefore to reduce thefe meafures, &c. to one ftandard, must be confidered as very laudable. And as the prefent performance puts it in the power of every perfon, who may fo incline, cafily to compare thefe different measures with one another, it highly mérits our approbation; and we wish to fee other performances of the fame kind with regard to England, France, and all the other countries in which a fpirit for improvement prevails. For want of fuch tables as thefe, many of the experiments recorded by Du Hamel, and others, are altogether useless, as it is impoffible to form any adequate idea of the extent of ground, or real amount of the produce mentioned in their experiments.

In forming an estimate of the value of money at different periods, it is a common practice, and feemingly a very natural one, to compare the price of a meafure of any kind of grain which we find incidentally mentioned in any tranfaction, with the common price of the fame nominal measure of grain in modern times but here we are liable to err in two ways; first, by not knowing exactly what proportion the particular measure fpoken of bore to the legal standard at that time ;-and secondly, from our forming an improper eftimate of the fize of the legal ftandard at the period mentioned: for there is no doubt that the legal measures have varied at different periods both in England and Scotland, and probably in every other country, so that we ought to be extremely cautious about drawing important con

The wheat boll in this county is 12.941 per cent. better than flandard.

In the north of England the boll is a measure for grain, as well as in Scotland. About Sunderland and Newcattle two Winchefter bufhels, we are informed, are called a boll. The boll in Tiviotdale, therefore, is more than ten times the fize of the Newcagle boll. 1 In the north of England.

clufions

clufions from data that are fo fufpicious. Our ingenious Author, although he profeffes not to be an antiquary, has, in an appendix, thrown fome light on the contents of the standard weights and measures of Scotland at different periods. We wifh we had an equally authentic account of thofe of England, and the nations with which we are, or were formerly, much connected.

It appears from our Author's account, that from the reign of David I., about the year 1130, to that of James I., anno 1426, the boll contained 4044 cubic inches; fo that it was fomewhat less than half of the present standard wheat boll, and alfo less than one-third of the prefent ftandard boll of oats or barley, being to the wheat boll as 1 to 2.1735, and to the barley boll as 1 to 3.1953.

From the year 1426 to 1457, the boll contained 5283.26 cubic inches, and was to the prefent ftandard wheat boll as 1 to 1.663, and to the prefent ftandard boll of barley as 1 to 2.426.

From the year 1457 to 1587, the boll contained 5594.04 cubic inches, and was to the prefent ftandard wheat boll as i to 1.57, and to the boll of barley as I to 2.222.

From the year 1587 to 1618 (at which time the present ftandards were fixed), the boll contained 7910.4 cubic inches, and was to the present ftandard boll of wheat as I to 1.11, and to the boll of bear as 1 to 1.62. Thus have the measures been gradually increased to more than double their fize in wheat and peafe, and to more than three times their original dimenfions as to oats, barley, malt, &c.; other measures and weights were liable to fimilar variations, fome greater and others lefs than the original standards. But we have chofen to follow out the meafures of capacity for things dry, that the reader may have a connected view of one branch of the fubject.

We fhall take leave of this very refpectable Author, after making one remark that naturally arifes from the foregoing facts; viz. that we ought not to entertain fuch an extravagant idea as is ufually formed of the poverty of Scotland, or the exceeding high value of money in that part of the kingdom, from the notices that fometimes occur, of the prices of grain in old times being reckoned immoderately high, when, at first fight, it appears to have colt but very little money. The fize of the boll we fee has gradually increased, as above, to more than double or three times its original dimenfions, while the weight of a pound in money has decreafed to about the thirty-feventh part of its original weight; fo that without making allowance for thefe variations, we may naturally enough form an idea that filver, at a certain period, was about eighty or a hundred times of higher yalue than it really was at the time.

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