Pint or Jug 20 ounces
1/2 „ „ Gill (in the north) 10 „
1/4 „ „ Jack (or Noggin) 5 „
1/8 „ „ Jock (a dram) 2 1/2 „
1/16 „ „ Joey 1 1/4 „
The customary capacity of wine-bottles is 1/6 gallon = 26-2/3 ounces. So
six customary bottles go to the gallon, and a customary ‘dozen’ of wine
or spirits = 2 gallons.
In India the gallon of canteen-spirit, rum or arrack, is reckoned as 48
drams, each 1/8 bottle or 3-1/3 fluid ounces.
7. MEDICINAL FLUID MEASURES
The Imperial gallon, as 10 lb. of water = 160 fluid ounces, each of
437-1/2 grains of water at standard temperature.
Its eighth part, the Pint, contains 20 ounces weight or 20 fluid-ounces
measure. It is so divided on druggists’ glass measures. The fluid ounce
is divided into 8 fluid drachms, each of 60 minims, approximately fluid
grains.
In the United States, where the old wine-gallon of 231 cubic inches is
retained, the old wine-pint of 16 fluid ounces is used. 231 c.i. ×
252·458 (grains of water in 1 c.i.) gives—
58,317·8 grains for the gallon
7,289·7 „ „ „ pint
455·6 „ „ „ ounce
The fluid ounce is divided as in England into 8 fluid drachms, of 60
minims.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IX
THE MINT-POUNDS
1. THE SAXON OR TOWER POUND
At some time before the Norman Conquest the Marc of Cologne was brought
to England, probably only as the mint-standard of the later English
kings, for the 16-ounce Roman pound was already long-established as the
commercial weight.
The standard of the Cologne marc has never varied much.
Its mean weight = 3608 grains; when doubled it made a pound = 7216
grains, with an ounce = 451 grains. This pound is almost identical with
the greater rotl of Al-Mamūn, 1/100 of the cantar = 102·92 lb.; and the
old Prussian pound of Cologne standard was 1/100 of the Prussian centner
= 103·11 lb.
The Norman Conquest made no change; the Saxon pound became the Tower
pound, the King’s treasury or mint being in the Tower of London. The
Tower pound of standard silver was coined into 240 silver pennies,
which, at 22-1/2 grains, their weight down to the time of Edward III,
gives 5400 grains for the pound and 450 grains for the ounce. An actual
weight = 5404 grains was found in the Pyx chamber in 1842.
The shilling, of 12 pence, was until Tudor times only money of account.
But it was also a weight of account, the pound being either 12 ounces of
20 pennyweight, or 20 shillings of 12 pennyweight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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