Bittersweet, THE STORY OF SUGAR
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loginAs far as possible, I have converted measurements and mone-tary values to a common scale. Most of the masses given areapproximations, converted to a notional ‘ton’, which is a mix ofthe metric tonne, the short ton and the avoirdupois ton, whichmay be divided into 20 hundredweights (cwt). With many of thegallon figures, it is unclear as to whether they should be taken asthe modern US gallon (the old English wine gallon of 231 cubicinches) or the modern British gallon (the old English corn gallonof 268.8 cubic inches), or even the beer gallon of 282 cubicinches. ‘A pint’s a pound/the whole world round’ say the Ameri-cans, even as the British and their Commonwealth once chanted‘a pint of pure water/weighs a pound and a quarter’.Faced with the prospect of boring myself, my editor and myreaders witless with voluminous conversions based on oftenunreliable assumptions about what was meant in the first place,I opted for a retreat into vagueness. I hope this vagueness will beappreciated.
