that he will not understand your question.' This, however, we cannot help considering one of the greatest inconveniences of transatlantic and continental reckonings. We are accustomed to talk of amounts in as small numbers as possible; and one of the great advantages we see in decimal gradations is, that we should never have a number above 9, except in pounds. There is something not only troublesome but indefinite, in the idea of ten and twenty in comparison with one and two; and a French account in francs bewilders us when it amounts to thousands and millions. Probably the half and quarter francs of France, and the half and quarter dollars of America, have been the means of exploding the decimals next below them; and on this ground we differ from those who plead for the continuance of our present shillings and sixpences, as half and quarter florins. The shilling is a coin so inseparably connected with 12 and 20, that no decimal system will obtain while it exists. It is useless to say, that it would be retained only as a circulation coin, and not as a denomination in accounts; for so long as we have it at all, we will certainly reckon from it and by it. For purposes of common barter, there ought to be a two-cent piece, a four-cent, and perhaps a seven-cent; and thus we shall be compelled to _think decimally_. 'If it is worth while to alter at all,' says Mr Taylor, 'ought we not to go the whole required length, and aim without timidity at the possession of a scale complete at once within itself, and so escape an indefinite prolongation of the purgatory of transition? In a change like the one under consideration, the work of pulling down an old system is far more difficult than that of building up another, and every prop must be removed before it will fall.'