Dear Rob, I have interspersed some remarks.
on 2005-01-13 23.24, ewc at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi Pat > > There are 2240 lb (avoirdupois) in a British ton! True. Do you know exactly when this was specified in English law? > The hundredweight was a weight fixed at 112 lb (for wool etc) in > England by at least the 13th century - and the ton a weight at 20 cwt. I live in a wool town (Geelong, Australia) and the subject of finding the mass of wool fascinates me. In the 18th century, it was the practice to have Australia farmers shear their sheep in September and October and to store their wool in their nice open drafty shearing sheds. The wool was then transported to (say) Geelong in January ready for the wool sales were held in February. After the sales the wool was transported to (say) Birmingham, where the wool was removed from the bales, spread out on the floors of 'conditioning houses, and then rebaled for sale in the English markets. The key elements of this procedure all relied on the moisture absorbing and holding capabilities of wool fibres � wool can hold as much as 34�% of its mass as water held internally in the wool fibres without feeling wet. So the explanation of the wool marketing procedure goes like this: 1 The September shorn wool was dried in the farmer's woolsheds from October to January � its water content might drop to 9�%. 2 This wool was then 'weighed' into the Geelong woolstores at this moisture level. 3 The wool was then spread out in the moist airs of the Gulf Stream in England to increase the water content to its limit of 34�% before the English sales. 4 The wool traders sat back to enjoy their sale of 25�% water (34% � 9�%) that they had just sold as 'pure wool'. > The corresponding avoirdupois pound was fixed and in common use by at > least the 14th century. Do you have a more exact date for this? > Both these things happened a long time before even Columbus was a > twinkle in his great-grandmother's eye. > > So where did the US short ton come from? There is no answer to this > question in the below! Agreed, my purpose was to try to move closer to the region of history where it might be profitable to seek decimalisation. > Anyone who compares the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica (ie the British > one) with the current one (ie the American one) is quickly going to > see its historical metrology went backwards rapidly once EB went to > Chicago. What is going on here? Yanks are just a clever as Brits (or > just as stupid maybe) so I find this apparent general failure of > historical metrological comprehension in the US kind of weird - almost > sinister. > > best > > rob > > PS - re your second posting - this is just speculation. Agreed, again this speculation was aimed at moving closer to the possible period for the 'creation' of the new 2000�pound ton. > It fails to > consider the fact that the US pound was and remains binary. It is only binary if you ignore the factors of 7 and 5. 2240 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 5 x 7 > If we > want to discuss the origins of the western decimal weight system then > the Arabs very likely reached it (by a cunning interplay of binary and > sexagesimal systems) by at least 700 AD. Don't forget that the Egyptians also had a play with decimal measures at the time of Thoth who appears in the hieroglyphs associated with the 11th and 12th Egyptian Dynasties, so he appears to have been popular from about 2040 BCE to about 1780 BCE � the khet of 100 royal cubits and a parasang of 10�000 royal cubits are particularly interesting in this context. > But that is beside the point. > We are dealing with modern events here - regarding US history - and > can reasonably expect to get hard facts. Where are they? I can't help you here. My suspicion is that traders, realising the 10.7�% gain to be made by using a 'short ton' instead of a long ton quietly and unobtrusively introduced it on a trader by trader basis, and it was not until this corrupt practice was well established in the trading community of the USA that it was retrospectively recognised by the legislators. Given my earlier speculation about the introduction of decimal measures in the late 18th century, I would look for the enabling legislation about 50 to 100 years later, say from 1825 to 1875. (And to ask a rhetoric (and facetious) question, I wonder if it would be worthwhile looking for evidence of the referendum that was held before the new definition of a ton was passed by the legislators? After all the public were about to be ripped off by 10.7�% on all the goods they purchased and this continues till today.) Cheers, Pat Naughtin Geelong, Australia 61 3 5241 2008 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metricationmatters.com > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 10:34 AM > Subject: [USMA:31895] Origin of tonnes > > >> Dear Rob and All, >> >> Many years ago, I heard of a 13th Century English unit called a tun. > This >> was a volume unit that I understood was used to measure stored > grain. I >> include an item about the tun in the History item in the latest > 'Metrication >> matters' newsletter, see >> http://www.metricationmatters.com/mm-newsletter-2005-01.html >> >> Wikipedia also has the following two paragraphs that I have quoted > in >> reverse order see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton : >> >> The first paragraph suggests that originally the tunne or tonne was > a >> measure of volume. This fits with my story of a tun as a volume > measure for >> grain. >> >> 'The word ton or tonne is derived from the Old English tunne, and > ultimately >> from the Old French tonne, and referred originally to a large cask > with a >> capacity of 252 wine gallons (volume of about 950 litres), which > holds >> approximately 2100 pounds of water (a mass of 950 kilograms). Such a > barrel >> is still called a tun in British English, but this usage is dying > out'. >> >> This second quote suggests that gradually the volume measure tunne > was >> gradually replaced by a mass measure based on how much water a tunne > could >> hold. >> >> "Both the short ton and the long ton are composed of twenty > hundredweights, >> each having different values for the hundredweight (100 (45 kg) and > 112 >> pounds (51 kg) respectively). Prior to the 15th century in England, > the ton >> was still composed of twenty hundredweights, but each was 108 lb (49 > kg), >> giving a ton of 2160 pounds (980 kg)'. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Pat Naughtin ASM (NSAA), LCAMS (USMA)* >> PO Box 305, Belmont, Geelong, Australia >> Phone 61 3 5241 2008 >> >> Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, >> 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by going to >> http://www.metricationmatters.com and clicking on 'Newsletter'. >> >> * Pat is the editor of the 'Numbers and measurement' chapter of the >> Australian Government Publishing Service 'Style manual � for > writers, >> editors and printers', he is an Accredited Speaking Member (ASM) > with the >> National Speakers Association of Australia, and a Lifetime Certified >> Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States > Metric >> Association. >> >> >> >> on 2005-01-13 20.42, ewc at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>> Hi Bill & all >>> >>> you write >>> >>> <<You are correct in saying that you don't have specific knowledge > of the >>> Conf�rence G�n�rale. The people who attend the CGPM are not French > academics, >>> but are representatives of their respective countries. I don't > believe France >>> has any greater representation than any other country>> >>> >>> In my reasonably long experience of attending meetings I've come > to the >>> conclusion that who attends is pretty much irrelevant - its he who > writes the >>> minutes that counts. But anyhow - that issue is no going to be > advanced by us >>> exchanging simplistic one-liners. >>> >>> How about answering my earlier question - where did the US > customary ton come >>> from? Any 'FFU' users care to answer? >>> >>> rob >>> >>> (Robert Tye, York, UK) >>>> >>> >> >> >> >> >
