 MONEY - THEN AND NOW Installment IX
Weights and Measures
Larry LaBorde
May 11, 2004
One of the first orders of business in our newly-founded United
States was the establishment of uniform weights and standards
in order to facilitate trade.
In order to find out what that really means and how important
a task it actually was we need once again to study history.
Like all civil engineers I studied surveying many years ago in
college. Modern surveying is quite interesting and involves a
bit of trigonometry. Back in the middle ages in Europe, however,
it was not as accurate. For instance an acre was taken to mean
the amount of land a farmer could work by himself. An acre of
rocky ground on the side of a hill was larger than an acre of
meadow. A bushel was the amount of seed required to sow an acre.
Other measurements were just as confusing. A gallon of beer was
larger than a gallon of wine due to its lower power of intoxication.
Dutch millers charged the same price for a bushel of flour to
wholesalers and retailers. They just used a larger "bushel"
when selling to wholesalers. In Rome when the price of a loaf
of bread was fixed, the size of the loaf would vary from year
to year since the price could not. In some parts of Europe wheat
buyers used smaller and smaller bushels to measure the wheat
they purchased as they moved farther out from the cities to purchase
it. The logic was they had to offset the cost to transport the
wheat back to the cities. In some places a bushel of oats was
larger than a bushel of wheat since the wheat was more valuable
than oats. There were dozens of different bushels, gallons and
hogsheads in use throughout Europe and the colonies. All of which
hindered fair trade between parties.
Many of our present day measures have anatomical origins such
as the width of a finger or the width of a thumb. The width of
a thumb is one inch and 12 inches makes the length of a foot.
The width of sixteen fingers also makes a foot. The classic Roman
definition of anatomical measure is: 4 fingers = 1 palm, 4 palms
= 1 foot, 6 palms = 1 cubit, 4 cubits = total height.
Weights and measures varied throughout Europe. Each country had
its own system and there were several sub systems within each
country. As trade with other regions increased, so did the need
for a universal standard. King Henry III of England in 1266 introduced
the sterling system for coinage and set the weight of the pound
to be 240 pennyweights. This standard would serve for over 700
years. A little later Elizabeth I set a standard of avoirdupois
weights for heavy commerce and maintained troy weights for lighter
commerce. She also redefined the mile from the old Roman mile
of 5,000 feet to the present length of 5,280 feet. You may wonder
why such an odd number. Since most surveying was done with simple
math the number 4 was its basis. (easy to double, half &
multiply.)
4 grains of barley = 1 finger
4 fingers = 1 hand (or old Roman palm)
4 hands = 1 foot
For surveying or measuring long distances:
16.5 feet (5.5 yards) = 1 perch or rod or pole
4 perches = 1 chain (Gunter's chain)
40 perches = 1 furlong
8 furlongs = 1 mile
In order to measure off an acre all you had to do was measure
an area of 160 square perches such as 4 perches x 40 perches
(or one chain by 10 chains). It was assumed that one person could
work 4 square perches in one day by hand. There was 40 days of
work in a single acre. A single acre was also the amount of land
that a pair of oxen was able to work in a one day. A square mile
(or section) consisted of 640 acres. A township consisted of
36 sections. All of this measure was based on the number 4.
Queen Elizabeth had the first official yard commissioned in 1601
out of a brass rod. She then sent out 58 brass copies throughout
England with instructions that descriptions be pinned up in every
church and read during the service twice a year for the next
four years.
Thomas Jefferson wanted our country laid out in metric terms
based on the number 10 but an unfortunate storm dashed the early
hopes for a metric measuring system. In 1794 Joseph Dombey set
sail for Philadelphia, the city of enlightenment in the new world
with a brass rod and weight. These were copies of the new meter
and kilogram from France. Unfortunately a storm blew the ship
off course and they ended up in the Caribbean. The politics of
France in the Caribbean island interfered with the scientific
journey of Dombey and he ended up in a jail cell where he died.
Even though the standards finally made their way to Philadelphia,
without Dombey to explain them they were never even shown to
congress. It would be much later before the metric system of
measure made its mark in the new world.
As a result of political pressure to hurry and open up the new
lands to the West, the old system based on the number 4 was used
to survey the new "western" territories. Once it was
put in use it carried all the way to the Pacific coast and is
still in use to this day.
Jefferson and Hamilton did manage to get the new decimal system
based on the number 10 applied to the new currency. The old system
of 240 pennyweights to the pound based on the number 4 was retired
early in the United States.
The coinage act of 1792 set the value of the dollar at 24.75
grains of pure gold or 371.25 grains of .999 fine silver (or
412 grains of 90% silver). The resulted in a 15:1 silver to gold
ratio. This was just another of the many weights and standards
that the founding fathers felt were necessary for carrying out
commerce in a fair and equitable fashion. As a matter of fact
this was so important to the new government of the United States
that the mint building was the first official building constructed
even before the new white house or capitol.
Fortunately the foot, yard and pound still survive to this day.
Their exact dimensions are held in high regard and their use
is constantly checked daily by bureaucrats all across the country.
Unfortunately the weights and standards of our money have slowly
been eroded until in 1971 when they were cut loose completely
and allowed to float. Imagine the world we would live in if all
our measurements changed daily. Can you even imagine Peter Jennings
reporting that, "The yard fell today against the meter"
and "in other news it was reported that the pound strengthened
this week against the kilogram." But we do hear nightly
the report that the dollar has risen or fallen against the yen
or euro and do not seem to think it strange at all!
Instead of reporting the price of gold in dollars, perhaps we
should report the price of the dollar in gold? Such as, "Today
the dollar fell slightly and has dropped to xx grains of gold."
If you are measuring anything you need a set of measures that
does not change.
I claim that gold is a much better measure of value than our
present day dollars. Over 5,000 years of history is on my side
of the argument. All fiat currency has failed in the past and
the dollar will be no different. The only question is when it
will happen, not if. And when all those IOUs we have spread all
over the world come home to roost it will be a sudden and terrible
time for those who hold dollars. During that fateful time there
will not be time to change fiat dollars into gold. The carnage
will come quickly. Now is the time to move out of dollars and
into a real store of value. There may not be a better time again.
May 10,
2004
Larry LaBorde
 Silver Trading Company
318-470-7291
website: www.silvertrading.net
email: llabord@aol.com
Larry lives in Shreveport, LA with his wife Puddy, and sells
precious metals at the Silver Trading Company.
Larry can be contacted at llabord@aol.com. You can view his web
site at www.silvertrading.net.
Send questions, comments or corrections to llabord@silvertrading.net.
"Please note that I am by no means a financial advisor and
all investments should only be made after performing your own
due diligence." -Larry
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