Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History and Guide Arranged Alphabetically by Thomas T. Harman;Walter Showell
page 324 of 741 (43%)
page 324 of 741 (43%)
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number of inches.
To turn millimetres to inches add the figure 0 and divide by 254. To make cubic inches into cubic centimetres multiply by 721 and divide by 44; cubic centimetres into cubic inches multiply by 44 and divide by 721. To turn grains into grammes, multiply the number by 648 and divide the product by 10,000. To turn grammes into grains, multiply by 10,000, dividing the result by 648. The metric system is especially useful in our local jewellery and other trades, but it is very slowly making its way against the old English foot and yaid, even such a learned man as Professor Rankine poking fun at the foreign measures in a comic song of which two verses run:-- Some talk of millimetres, and some of kilogrammes, And some of decillitres to measure beer and drams; But I'm an English workman, too old to go to school, So by pounds I'll eat, by quarts I'll drink, and work by my two-foot rule. A party of astronomers went measuring of the earth, And forty million metres they took to be its girth; Five hundred million inches now go through from pole to pole, So we'll stick to inches, feet, and yards, and our own old two-foot |
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