With these data, we are enabled, accurately, to ascertain the dimensions and contents of the bushel, the ale gallon, and wine gallon, of 1266. The silver penny, called the sterling, to which 32 kernels of wheat were equiponderant, was equal to 224 grains troy. Its pound of twelve ounces was equivalent to 5400 grains troy. The pound of fifteen ounces, by which wheat and wine were weighed, was equal to 6750 grains troy. Eight such pounds were equal to 54,000 grains troy, which divided by 250, the number of grains troy, weighed by a cubic inch of Bordeaux wine, gives a wine gallon of 216 cubic inches.

There is no standard wine gallon of that age extant in England; but the weights and measures of England were established by law in Ire land as early as the year 1351: and by the act called Poyning's law, of 10 Henry VII., (1493,) all the then existing statutes of England, relating to weights and measures, were made applicable to Ireland. The changes since effected in England have not extended to Ireland; at least in relation to the measure of wine. The standard Irish wine gallon at this day is of 217.6 cubic inches; a difference almost imperceptible in the quantity of the gallon, from the legal standard of 1266, and the cause of which must have been this.

There was another law, probably of date more ancient than the year 1266, in which the measure of the wine gallon was fixed by a different process.

A statute of the year 1423, the second of Henry the Sixth, ch. ii, declares that, "in old time it was ordained, and lawfully used, that tuns, pipes, tertians, hogsheads of Gascoigne wine, barrels of her"ring and of eels, and butts of salmon, coming by way of merchan"dise into the land, out of strange countries, and also made in the "same land, should be of certain measure; that is to say: the tun of "wine 252 gallons, the pipe 126 gallons, the tertian 84 gallons, the "hogshead 63 gallons, the barrel of herring and of eels 30 gallons, "fully packed, the butt of salmon 84 gallons, fully packed, &c. ; but "that of late, by device and subtlety, such vessels have been of much "less measure, to the great deceit and loss of the king and his people, "whereof special remedy was prayed in the parliament." It then proceeds to re-enact that no man shall make in England vessels for those purposes, or bring wine, &c. into England in vessels of other dimensions, than those thus prescribed, upon penalty of forfeiture.

The ordinance of old time, referred to in this act, is not now among the statutes at large, and is therefore probably of more ancient date than the Magna Charta of 1225. As it regulated the size of casks, which, in the nature of the thing, were to be made in the country whence the wine was imported, it seems likely to have originated when Gascoign was under English dominion, and when the law of Bordeaux could be accommodated to the assize of the English ton. This assize of the ton is in its nature connected with the trade of the cooper, with the assize of hoops and staves, with the art of the shipbuilder, and with the whole science of hydraulics and of navigation. The measure and form of the ton must be accommodated to the cha

racter of the substance which it is to contain, and to the convenience and safety of its conveyance by sea. It must be adapted for stowage to the necessary form of the ship; to the volatile property of fluids; to the concussions of tempestuous elements. It is in the composition of the ton that the natural connection between the weight of water, and cubic linear measure, first presents itself. The burden of the ship is the weight of tonnage which it can bear afloat upon the waves; that weight is equal to the weight of water which it displaces; the measure of the ship must be taken by the builder in linear measure. Now eighty of the old easterling tower pounds make 432,000 grains troy weight, which, divided again by 250, the number of troy grains to a cubic inch of Bordeaux wine, give 1728 cubic inches, precisely the dimensions of an English cubic foot, one eighth part of which makes again the gallon of 216 cubic inches. And here we discover, again, the quadrantal or amphora of the Romans, the cubic foot containing 80 pounds of wine.

That the assize of the ton, which in 1423 was of old time, was equally well known and established in 1553, appears from a statute of that date, 27 Edward III., ch. 8, directing that all wines, red and white, should be gauged by the king's gaugers, and that in case less should be found in the tun or pipe than ought to be of right, after the assize of the tun, the value of as much as lacked should be allowed and deducted in payment.

The casks of Bordeaux wine were then and still are made for stowage in such manner that four hogsheads occupy one ton of shipping. The ton was of thirty-two cubic feet by measure, and of 2016 English pounds, of fifteen ounces to the pound, in weight; equal to 2560 of the easterling tower pound.

In comparing together the wine gallon as prescribed by the statute of 1266 and that derived from the assize of the tun, we find the former in the ascending ratio, beginning with the kernel of wheat and multiplying: the latter is formed in the descending ratio, beginning at the tun and dividing. In one process, the gallon is formed by weight; in the other, by measure. The hogshead of wine was the measure corresponding to the quarter of wheat: but there was a difference of eight pounds in their weight. The hogshead of wine weighed 504 and the quarter of wheat 512 pounds, of 15 ounces. The wine gallon of 216 cubic inches, prescribed by the statute of 1266, was thus an exact eighth part of the English cubic foot of 1728 inches.

The wine gallon therefore is the congius of the Romans, weighing ten nummulary and eight commercial pounds, and measuring exactly the eighth part of a cubic foot.

But the gallon of 216 cubic inches, the eighth part of the cubic foot, was derived originally from a measure of water, and was an aliquot part of the ton of shipping. The wine gallon of 1266 was made of eight easterling pounds of wheat; and, therefore, contained of water eight corresponding commercial pounds. But if the gallon of water, weighing eight pounds, was of 216 solid inches, the gallon

of Gascoign wine, to be of the same weight, would be of 217.6 solid inches, the precise contents of the standard Irish gallon to this day: and the specific gravity of that wine being to that of wheat as 143 to 175, the corn gallon, balanced by this Irish gallon of 217.6 inches, must be of 266.17 cubic inches. The Rumford corn gallon of the year 1228, examined by the committee of the House of Commons in 1758, was found to be of 266.25 cubic inches. The Irish wine gallon and the Rumford corn gallon of 1228 were both made, with an accuracy which all the refinements of art of the present age could scarcely surpass, from the standard measure made, as the statute of 1266 declares, by the consent of the whole realm, and precisely in the manner therein described.

But, as the hogshead, measuring eight cubic feet, was required by the assize of the tun to contain only sixty-three gallons of wine, it followed of course that the gallon thus composed was of 219.43 cubic inches; and as the weight of eight such gallons of wine was to form the bushel, the proportion of the weight of wine being to that of wheat as 143 to 175, the bushel would be of 2148.25 cubic inches, which is within two inches of the Winchester bushel.

This system of weights and measures has been, by many of the modern English writers on the subject, supposed to have been established by the statute of 1266. But, upon the face of the statute itself, it is a mere exemplification of ancient ordinances. The coincidences in its composition with those of the ancient Romans, proved by the letter of the Silian law, and by the still existing congius of Vespasian; with those of the Greeks, as described by Galen, and as shown by the proportions between their scale weight and their metrical weight; and with that of the Hebrews, as described in the prophecy of Ezekiel; show that its origin is traceable to Egypt and Babylon, and there vanishes in the darkness of antiquity. As founded upon the identity of nummulary weights and silver coins, and upon the relative proportion between the gravity and extension of the first articles of human traffic, corn and wine, it is supposed to have originated in the nature and relations of social man, and of things.

It has been said, that the first inroad upon this system in England was made by Edward the First himself, by destroying the identity between the money weight and the silver coin. From the time of the Norman Conquest, and long before, that is, for a space of more than three centuries, the tower easterling or sterling pound had been coined into twenty shillings, or two hundred and forty of those silver pennies, each of which weighed thirty-two kernels of wheat from the middle of the ear. Edward the First, in the year 1328, coined the same pound into two hundred and forty-three pen-nies of the same standard alloy. From the moment of that coinage, the penny called a sterling, however round, however unclipped, had lost the sterling weight, though it still retained the name. This debasement of the coin, once commenced, was repeated by successive sovereigns, till, in the reign of Edward the Third, the pound was

coined into twenty-five shillings, or 300 pennies. The silver penny then weighed only 25 kernels of that wheat of which the penny of 1266 weighed 32. It is probable that, in reducing the weight of their coins, none of those sovereigns were aware that they were taking away the standard of all the weights and of all the vessels of measure, liquid and dry, throughout the kingdom: but so it was. It destroyed all the symmetry of the system. It has been further affected by the introduction of the troy and avoirdupois weights.

The standard measures of the exchequer had been made by the rules set forth in the statutes of 1266 and 1304. These standards were kept in the royal exchequer. In process of time, the standards themselves fell into decay, and called for renovation. In the year 1494, shortly after the termination of the long and sanguinary wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, Henry the Seventh, in the tenth year of his reign, undertook to furnish forty-three of the principal cities of the kingdom with new copies of all the standard weights and measures then in the exchequer. They were accordingly made and delivered to the representatives in parliament of the respective counties: but it was soon discovered that they were all defective, and not made according to the laws of the land. From what cause this had arisen, does not appear; but that the laws of the land to which they referred, namely, the statutes of 1266 and 1304, were and continued to be entirely misunderstood, is abundantly apparent from the statute which was made the very next session of parliament, 1496, to remedy the evil.

This act, after reciting the extraordinary attention of the king in having made at his great charge and cost, and having distributed, all those county standards of weights and measures, according to the old standards in the treasury; and after stating the disappointment which had ensued, upon the discovery of more diligent examination that they were all defective and not made according to the old laws and statutes, proceeds to ordain, that the measure of a bushel contain eight gallons of wheat, that every gallon contain eight pounds of wheat, troy weight, and every pound contain twelve ounces of troy weight, and every ounce contain twenty sterlings, and every sterling be of the weight of thirty-two corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear of wheat, according to the old laws of the land: and the new standard gallon, after the said assize, was to be made to remain in the king's treasury forever. All the weights and measures, which had been sent by the act of the former year throughout England, were directed to be returned: others, conformable to the new standard, were to be made from them and sent back, after which, all weights and measures were to be made conformably to them.

It is from the terms of this statute, that many of the English writers have concluded that the kernel of wheat was the original standard of English weights. It is by this statute made the standard of troy weight; but it was not so according to the old laws of the land. It was not so in the measure declared in 1266, and 1304, to have been

made by the consent of the whole realm of England. To prove this, it is only necessary to compare the statutes together.

The two first declare, that an English penny, called a sterling, reund and without any clipping, will weigh thirty-two corns of wheat from the midst of the ear. That penny was the two hundred and fortieth part of the old tower pound, and was one-sixteenth lighter than troy weight. The weight of that penny in 1266 is therefore now known, but appears not to have been known to the parliament of 1496. For the tower pound was then coined into thirty-seven shillings and six pence sterling, and, consequently, the penny called a sterling, instead of then weighing thirty-two grains of the wheat, which it weighed in 1304, would have weighed only seventeen of the same grains.

The term penny, therefore, is dropped in the act of 1496, but the term sterling is retained, and improperly applied to the penny weight troy. The penny of 1266 was both weight and coin. In 1496, the penny had ceased to be a coin, and the penny sterling, which was yet money, weighed little more than half what it had weighed till after 1304. The penny weight troy was never called a sterling, any where, or at any time, but in this act of 1496. It was neither the weight of the old tower standard, nor was it the penny sterling of Henry the Seventh's own coinage.

The statute of 1496 inverts the order of the old statutes; it is not a composition, but an analysis, of measures. It begins with the bushel, and descends to the kernel. The act of 1266, to make the weight, number, and measure, of corn, money, and wine, begins with the kernel, and ascends by steps to the weight of coin; thence, to the measure of wine, by the weight of corn; thence, to the measure of corn, by the weight of wine. The mere process of the composition establishes the proportional measures. The statute of 1496 destroys the proportion altogether. It says that every gallon shall contain eight pounds of wheat troy weight, and every pound twelve ounces of troy weight. It substitutes, therefore, instead of the weight of the gallon of wine, prescribed by the statute of 1266, the measure of the wine gallon, for the eighth part of the bushel. The gallon, established by this act of 1496, is the gallon of two hundred and twenty-four cubic inches; the Guildhall gallon, which in 1688 was found by the commissioners of the excise to be of that capacity. It contains eight pounds troy weight of wheat, and, consequently, eight pounds avoirdupois of Bordeaux wine, of 250 grains troy to the cubic inch. Its bushel would contain seventeen hundred and ninety-two cubic inches; but if such a bushel ever was made, as the act required, it never was used as a standard. It must have been found to fall too far short of the old standards still existing; and the real standard bushels of Henry the Seventh, in the exchequer, instead of being made according to the process prescribed in his law of 1496, must have been copied from the older standard bushels then existing.

The gallon of two hundred and thirty-one inches was also a gallon made under the statute of 1496. But the wheat is of that kind thirty