Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1913 — BURIED THE STANDARD POUND [ARTICLE]

BURIED THE STANDARD POUND

Official English Measures Will 6e Unearthed After Twenty Years Have Elapsed. « » The speaker, the president nf the board of trade and the chief commissioner of the office of works will Bhortly take part in an interesting ceremony at the House of Commons. This is the testing of the standard yard and standard pound in official use with the final and indisputable standards that are buried away in the House of Commons. In 1852 a hole was solemnly made In the masonry by the side of the staircase leading to the committee rooms of the house, and in the cavity was immured the standard yard and pound. It is necessary to keep subsidiary standards for frequent testing of other measures, and these are deposited in a building near the house known as the Jewel Tower. For fear that heat or cold should cause expansion or contraction of the official yard the temperature in the room is kept equable by the most delicate mechanism. Should it rise a lamp is automatically lit as a warning, and even the bodily heat of a person entering the room causes this signal to flash out But In spite of these precautions there is a fear that somehow the official measures in use might vary, so every twenty years they are taken with great care to be compared with the standards in the house. The chief commissioner of the office of works is charged to roll away the stone. Out come the standards and the president of the board of trade compares them. The speaker sees that the stone is duly laid again and the structure of the house suffers no damage. What Is to happen if the standard yards vary by a hair’s breadth apparently has not been provided for. The ceremony was last performed in 1892. —London Mail.