262 American grains of pure
silver.
If nothing more, then, is proposed, than to render uniform and
stable the system we already possess, this may be effected on the
plan herein detailed; the sum of which is: 1st. That the present
measures of length be retained, and fixed by an invariable standard.
2d. That the measures of surface remain as they are, and be
invariable also as the measures of length to which they are to refer.
3d. That the unit of capacity, now so equivocal, be settled at a
medium and convenient term, and defined by the same invariable
measures of length. 4th. That the more known terms in the two kinds
of weights be retained, and reduced to one series, and that they be
referred to a definite mass of some substance, the specific gravity
of which never changes. And 5th. That the quantity of pure silver in
the money unit be expressed in parts of the weights so defined.
In the whole of this no change is proposed, except an
insensible one in the troy grain and pennyweight, and the very minute
one in the money unit.
II. But if it be thought that, either now, or at any future
time, the citizens of the United States may be induced to undertake a
thorough reformation of their whole system of measures, weights and
coins, reducing every branch to the same decimal ratio already
established in their coins, and thus bringing the calculation of the
principal affairs of life within the arithmetic of every man who can
multiply and divide plain numbers, greater changes will be necessary.
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