As more figures must be used to indicate a size by millimètres than by inches and fractions, it appears that the metrical system cannot shorten the work of arithmetical computation in shop work, and is therefore of no advantage to the mechanic or draftsman, but rather the reverse. This is the opinion of Coleman Sellers, the distinguished Philadelphia engineer and manufacturer, who, after a trial of the millimètre in his shops for some years, returned to the use of the inch, and writes in _Engineering News_: “The loss from the use of a small unit requiring many figures to express what is needed, takes away from the other advantages of the system when considered from a labor-saving point of view.” In France itself the metrical system is not wholly decimal in actual practice, as we find the following measures in use in addition to the decimal divisions: double decamètre, demi-decamètre, double mètre, demi-mètre, and double decimètre. The metrical system has been adopted in the following countries: France and colonies, Holland and colonies, Belgium, Spain and colonies, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Greece, Roumania, British India, Mexico, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentine Confederacy, Chili, Venezuela; and partially in Wurtemburg, Bavaria, Baden, Hesse, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, and Turkey. In the past centuries all the work and records of English-speaking peoples--now numbering about 100,000,000, and increasing and progressing faster than all other nationalities, as well as being closely connected by descent and business--have been done and recorded under the yard standard, and any change now would inevitably render necessary continual reductions, to the great detriment and inconvenience of the mass of our people, and with little or no practical benefit, except perhaps to a small class of scientific and pseudo-scientific men, who can and do amuse themselves with the fancied uniformity of the mètre. All our numerous text-books and tables, mechanical and scientific, would be rendered entirely useless by the change, and this is a serious final consideration. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France, by Arthur S. C. Wurtele