The Bengal sér is, curiously enough, = 2 Cologne pounds of 7200 grains. It is divided into 16 chittaks or double ounces of 5 tolas. The tola is divided into 12 mashas (= 15 grains) of 8 ráti (the red seed of _Abrus precatoria_): 40 sér make a mánd = 82·28 lb. This sér (Ang. seer), the Government standard, is really a Troy weight. The rupee of different standard in the three presidencies was fixed in 1833 at 180 grains, 3 drachms of the Troy ounce; this being so, the sér of 80 rupees weight is = 30 Troy ounces and the mánd of 40 sérs is = 1200 Troy ounces or 100 Troy pounds. About 1870-72 the metric propaganda was epidemic among Indian Government Engineers; light railways were made on metre-gauge, and a nearly successful attempt was made to get the sér fixed at one kilogramme. An Act was about to be passed to this effect when the death of Lord Mayo stopped it, and the Act fell through. The Bengal sér and mánd[34] are the usual weights for official purposes. Some other sérs are used, often of low standard known as Kucha sérs (unripe, half-baked) in regard to the pukka (ripe, full-measure) sér of 80 tolas. Footnote 34: The difficulty in representing the sound _á_, _ah_, in English letters led to a general substitution of _aw_. Hence ‘cawny, maund, ghaut (steep), pawni (water), cawn (khan),’ &c.; all these words having an _a_, or _ah_, vowel. The Anglo-Indian also says _seer_ for sér. The Madras mánd was = 24·68 lb.; 20 mánd = 1 kándi, 493·7 lb.; but English trade considered the mánd as 25 lb. and the ‘candy’ as 500 lb. Madras had also a weight called the Vísham (Ang. Viss) of 120 tolas = 5 of its sérs, or 3·086 lb. divided into 40 pollams. _Capacity_ To this Madras weight corresponds the Adangáli, dangáli or puddi, or measure containing a vísham of grain, and therefore a pound-pint measure = about 3 pints. It is the usual measure of the daily grain-wage of agricultural labourers. Similarly in other parts of India, the sér measure contains a sér weight of the usual food grain. The measure is usually heaped, and whether sér or dangáli it delivers approximately either a sér or a vísham of the usual grains, rice, wheat, millet, pulse, &c. It is a pound-pint measure, avoiding the use of the balance. The Madras Government wanted to fix the dangáli at 100 cubic inches, but this would have been useless as not delivering a vísham. The necessary capacity to deliver a vísham of water is found by 3·086 lb. × 27·725 to be 85·76 cubic inches. Increased in the Southern water-wheat ratio of 1 : 1·22, we have 104·62 cubic inches as the true dangáli measure. So Government allowed 104-1/4 cubic inches, and this was about the capacity of a dangáli 8 inches high by 4 inches diameter, often a section of bamboo cut down to the proper capacity.