Scottish System
In Scotland, the Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh used a system in multiples of sixteen. (See Assay-Master's Accounts, 1681–1702, on loan from the Incorporation to the National Archives of Scotland.) Thus, there were 16 drops to the troy ounce, 16 ounces to the troy pound, and 16 pounds to the troy stone. The Scots had several other ways of measuring precious metals and gems, but this was the common usage for gold and silver.
The Pound was 7716 BI grains, but after the union, rounded to 7680 BI grains. This divides to 16 ounces, each of 16 drops, each of 30 grains. The rounding makes the ounce and grain equal to the English standard.
Read more about this topic: Troy Weight
Famous quotes containing the words scottish and/or system:
“I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man who, when forbidden to tread on English ground, carried Scottish ground in his boots, I carry Concord ground in my boots and in my hat,and am I not made of Concord dust? I cannot realize that it is the roar of the sea I hear now, and not the wind in Walden woods. I find more of Concord, after all, in the prospect of the sea, beyond Sandy Hook, than in the fields and woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The human body is not a thing or substance, given, but a continuous creation. The human body is an energy system ... which is never a complete structure; never static; is in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction; we destroy in order to make it new.”
—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)