A TREMENDOUS LOSS.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 73, 27 March 1920, Page 17

A TREMENDOUS LOSS.

s The great objection to the adoption of the metric 6ystem is well stated by E. S. Mummert in a letter to the "Scientific American." He says: "There are' in the United States and Great Britain and other English-speaking countries, millions if not billions of dollars' worth of machine tools and gauges built and graduated on the inch basis, and more millions of dollars' worth of jigs and special fixtures in machine-tool and tool builders' factories used to build standard tools to inch standards. These will all wear out some day and have to be replaced; and if it were possible to replace them thus gradually with metric system equipment the proposed change would not be so bad. But nothing of the sort is possible; you cannot go over to the metric system a iittle at a time, you must go over all at once. This would involve the absolute abandonment of all this equipment; i'- would bo a tremendous loss and a most impractical thing to do." , Mr. Mummert suggests that we adopt | the inch as one standard and decimalise it up and down. But the editor of the ■ "Scientific American" points out that it ■ vould not bring us nearer to inter- - national uniformity.