AN ESSAY

ON THE

PRIMITIVE UNIVERSAL STANDARD

OF

Weights and Measures.

BY

CAPTAIN T. B. JERVIS,

BOMBAY ENGINEERS.

OF

ANCIENT SCIENCE,

EXEMPLIFIED AND AUTHENTICATED

IN THE

PRIMITIVE UNIVERSAL STANDARD

OF

Weights and Measures.

COMMUNICATED IN AN ESSAY TRANSMITTED

TO

CAPT. HENRY KATER,

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

BY

CAPTAIN T. B. JERVIS,

OF THE ENGINEER CORPS.

"I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom,
and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolish-
ness and madness :-

"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they
have sought out many inventions."

[Ecclesiastes, Chap. vii. vers, 25 and 29.]

Calcutta :

PRINTED AT THE BAPTIST MISSION PRESS, CIRCULAR ROAD.

1835.

819.

PREFACE.

̓Αρχή φιλοσοφίας συναίσθησις τῆς αὐτοῦ ἀσθενείας, καὶ ἀδυναμίας Tepi τà άvayxaĩa.-Epictet. Arrian.

"The consciousness of one's own weakness and incapacity in matters of the greatest concern, is the beginning of True Philosophy."

Ir is not improbable that the following particulars would never have met the public eye, but for the accidental perusal of an article in the 31st No. of the Westminster Review, for January, 1832, entitled, A Review of Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, being part of a course delivered in Easter term, 1831, by Richard Whately, D. D. Principal of St. Alban's Hall; Professor of Political Economy in the University of Oxford.

In looking over some numbers of this periodical at the house of a friend, I observed an article on weights and measures, which attracted my attention, the more particularly as I was then engaged in researches on that subject. In a leisure hour I glanced over the first article also, in which the reader may find the following remarkable observations :