Edwin Knight, age ll, of Winston Salem, N.C., for his question:

What is the difference between a long ton and a short ton?

Some of the baker's loaves may have been underweight. So he added an extra one and there are l3 loaves in a baker's dozen. Coal tends to crumble and when shifted and handled some of it gets lost. We have a long ton and a short ton to allow for this loss of weight. At the mine a dealer buys a long ton of 2,240 pounds. He moves it and puts it into sacks and some gets lost, so he sells his customer a short ton of 2,000 pounds.

Short tons and long tons are used in selling ore, iron and other bulky materials. The dealer buys by the long ton of 2,240. As the material is handled and transported, sometimes more and sometimes less than 240 pounds of each ton goes to waste. But the dealer allows for this waste by selling his customer short tons of 2,000 pounds.