Yes really Mrs Beeton explains metric! (Or rather says where you can get the measures and what they mean though a bit of maths sort of wonders in at the end! Though the French it turned out were actually slightly out with this but Mrs Beeton didn’t now that – plus you can’t actually work this out as it depends on your world model.)
Graduated class measures can be obtained at any chemist’s, and they save much trouble. One of these, containing a wine pint, is divided into 16 oz., and the oz, into 8 drachms of water; by which, any certain weight mentioned in a recipe can be accurately measured out. Home-made measures of this kind can readily be formed by weighing the water contained in any given measure, and marking on any tall glass the space it occupies. This mark can easily be made with a file. It will be interesting to many readers to know the basis on which the French found their system of weights and measures, for it certainly possesses the grandeur of simplicity. The metre, which is the basis of the whole system of French weights and measures, is the exact measurement of one forty-millionth part of a meridian of the earth.
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