MANUAL OF COMMERCE. BY WILLIAM WATERSTON, ACCOUNTANT. EDINBURGH: OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT; AND SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., LONDON. MDCCCXL. 394. PREFACE. THE object of the present Work is to furnish within moderate limits a practical compendium of commercial information, particularly that which is of a tabular nature, and most frequently made the subject of reference. The First Part consists of RECKONING TABLES, designed to facilitate the daily interchanges that occur in ordinary business, by showing the Products of Quantities at a variety of different Rates or Prices. These Tables are more full and complete than most others of a similar kind already before the public, and are besides rendered available for the computation of fractional quantities: while, in the Second Part, their use is further extended by means of a series of SUPPLEMENTARY OF AUXILIARY TABLES. The whole are of a simple and popular nature, and will be readily understood on inspection: each set, however, is illustrated by examples. The Third Part is appropriated to Tables of DECIMAL EQUIVALENTS, which will be found useful for many purposes. The Fourth Part is devoted to BRITISH and FOREIGN MONIES, WEIGHTS, MEASURES, and EXCHANGES. The first section comprehends the present Monies, Weights, and Measures of the UNITED KINGDOM, and a general account of the Laws by which they are regulated; also those formerly used in ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, and IRELAND, with Formulæ, Rules, and Tables for their conversion into the existing standards. The confused manner in which the old and the new systems of measures are mixed together in most books has rendered it important to preserve them completely distinct in the present Work, and to state their mutual relations and proportions in accordance with the acts of Parliament. The list of Customary Measures, pages 147 and 148, has been revised by experienced brokers and merchants connected with the principal markets. rities; The account of the Monies, Weights, and Measures of other countries is, with the view of facilitating reference, arranged in alphabetical order. This section has been collated with the latest British, French, and German authoadvantage having likewise been taken of such information as is given in the annual volumes of the Board of Trade, the Reports of Dr Bowring, and the works of recent travellers. The adaptation of the whole to existing practice has been studied, no less by avoiding obsolete usages, than by giving effect to those which are new. Among the more recent changes are the alteration of the Money Standard of the UNITED STATES, the new Monies |