Apart from Leonhard Schmitz, Yates was the largest contributor to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1842, edited by william Smith; he furnished drawings for one half of the woodcuts, and wrote one-eighth of the text. Only the first part, with appendices, of his Textrinum Antiquorum (1843) was published. Papers on archæological subjects were contributed by him to the learned societies of London and Liverpool; among reprints of these are papers on The Use of the terms Acanthus, Acanthion, 1845 (from the Classical Museum); Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone, 1849; The Use of Bronze Celts, 1849; and Observations on the Bulla worn by Roman Boys, 1851, (from the Archæological Journal); Some Account of a Volume containing Portions of "Ptolemy's Geography," 1864 (from Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature). He became a strong advocate of the decimal system; among many tracts on this subject, he published a Narrative of the … Formation of the International Association for … a Uniform Decimal System, 1856 (two editions); What is the Best Unit of Length, Hackney, 1858; Handbook to … Synoptic Table … of the Metric System, Edinburgh, 1864.