John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

26. VI:30. James Burrill junr. a Senator from the State of Rhode-Island died this day. He was one of the most useful and respectable members of that body and alike estimable both in his public and private character. This third case of death among the members of Congress in the course of ten days, has occasioned much alarm among the timid and valetudinarian of their colleagues. Some of them are disposed to draw conclusions of unhealthiness in the place, which are without foundation. The place has all the healthiness of a rural situation of land waving in hill and dale, of running waters, and briskly circulating winds— Mr Francis Johnson a member of the House of Representatives from Kentucky came with a remonstrance signed by a great number of persons against the superseding of the Newspaper at Russelville for printing the Laws. I told Coll. Johnson that the responsibility of this alteration must rest upon his kinsman and namesake the Senator, at whose instance alone, it had been made. He said that it was personally to him a subject of perfect indifference— He had no wish that the printer at Russelville should be preferred; but as the remonstrants were his Constituents he was obliged to deliver to me their representation. But he said he would answer them that the reason for the change, had been a more convenient location for the distribution of the Laws, and there would be no necessity that I should answer the memorial at-all. I told him I should answer it, and state that the change had been made at the desire of Coll. R. M. Johnson, that being the simple fact, and my principle for complying with his wish having been my confidence in his knowledge, of that distribution of the printing which would best suit the local interest of the State— Major Roberdeau came by appointment to the Office and we weighed with all possible accuracy the contents in various kinds of water of the French Standard Litres— There was a difference amounting to nearly a penny weight, between the contents of the two— That which I have already tried containing so much more than the other— Major Roberdeau had procured for me a large jug full of distilled water which together with the other kinds of water that I had has been several days in the Library room to acquire the same temperature as that of the room— They were all at 32.5 or just above the freezing point. The Litre and glass weighed 4 pounds 6 ounces 12 pennyweights Troy; or 26208 Grains— And it is a circumstance worthy of remark, that upon four weighings on as many different days this is the second time that they have shewn this result; while at one weighing they were four grains and at another eight grains heavier. Whether this difference was in the things, and resulted from that in the state of the atmosphere, or whether it was inaccuracy in the scales, or imperfection in the mode of weighing I know not, but it proves how exceedingly difficult it is to ascertain with perfect exactness quantities comparatively so minute— On weighing the different 474kinds of water we found the Litre contained 15402 grains of distilled water 15403 of river water 15406 of pump, and 15407 of rain water, a result singularly favourable to the purity both of the Spring and river water of this place— I therefore set it down from the average of all my experiments that the French standard Litre contains 15405 grains of rain water—without allowance for the weight of the excluded air. I called at the President’s with the draft of an answer to Mr Canning’s last Note on the Slave-trade— He took it for consideration— Mrs Adams had her weekly tea-party, which was thinly attended— I received an invitation to attend the funeral of Mr Burrill: to go from the Senate chamber to-morrow morning.