| As I sit here typing this introduction, I am looking at a copy of The North American Arithmetic, Part Third, for Advanced Scholars, by Frederick Emerson. It was written in 1834.
It has chapters on the money, weights, and measures in use in Europe and America at that time. The English still had pence, shillings, and farthings.
The countries and city-states on the continent had a local currency instead of a Euro. Troy, Avoirdupois, and Apothecary weights were mentioned as standards in Europe.
But after that, there were English ells, French ells, and Flemish ells for measuring cloth—all of them different. There were separate liquid measures for wine and beer. Cities had local measures, so “100 lbs” in Trieste was 123.6 pounds Avoirdupois and 74.77 pounds Avoirdupois in Rome. The good news was that the new metric system in France seemed to be catching on and becoming more popular. How, do you suppose?
All of these differences were handled by Gaugers in each city. These were usually government tax employees who kept a set of dip sticks (or gauges) to measure liquids in barrels, weights for balance scales, baskets for dry goods, and so forth. The term survives today in the oil refinery business for people who test oil in storage tanks. They also calibrated the local merchant’s tools to assure fair trade within their jurisdiction. The seal cast on the front of a wine carafe is a leftover of a Gauger’s official seal, which would have been stamped into a piece of lead. |
