OK,OK,OK.... I suppose I am subjectively unwilling to admit that my Congress ever passed a fixation of the standard of weights and measures as is their right in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, but after reading Jim Frysinger's excellent "Metric Background" web page, which I strongly recommend, http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj/background.htm I do see that the Congress did "fix" something into place. Pasting in from Jim's page, the discussion reads as follows: 1836 Congress directed that standards be distributed to the states. Apparently pleased that somebody was taking concrete action, Congress passed a resolution on 1836 June 14 directing that standards for weights and measures be distributed to the states, thus unifying the units in use within the country. This report did not specify whether those should be metric standards or standards of the yard, pound, gallon, and bushel-however the latter were the ones distributed by the Treasury. Thus they became the de facto units of commonly used measures and rapid adoption by the states in their laws and regulations made them effectively the de jure standards. Two years later Congress directed that the Treasury Department distribute balances to the states to use with those standards. I suppose we could call this the WOMBAT resolution, or, maybe even the "Whatever" resolution. It's time that the Congress fixed what it "fixed"! -- Paul Trusten, R.Ph. 3609 Caldera Boulevard, Apt. 122 Midland TX 79707-2872 USA (915)-694-6208 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
