Harding. — Certain Decimal and Metrical Fallacies. Ill 



tion of the neglected ancient standard in order that it may 

 remain as an authoritative check by which the accuracy of 

 the meter may be tested ? It reads hke comic opera, but it 

 is true. In the " History and Review of the Toise Measure 

 Standard," pubhshed by Ferdinand Dummler, Berhn, Pro- 

 fessor Dr. W. Foerster, who writes the introduction, says, — 



The old French system, whose unit was the toise graduated in six 

 Parisian feet (= 72 Paris inches = 8B4 Paris lines) is also at present, next 

 to the universal and exclusively recognised (legal) metrical system, of 

 great scientific and practical value, since the same has not only been 

 the starting-point for the fixing of the basis of the metrical system, but 

 even at the present time has found employment in pendulum observa- 

 tions, and, by reason of its inclusion in numerous good measure scales 

 and basis-measure apparatus, in land-surveying, especially in Germany. 

 In order to secure a fixed and accurate transition from all the old 

 French units of measurement to measurements according to metric 

 units, and thereby to take the last step to overcome the old system, and 

 finally to attain a homogeneous basis for all measurements, it is of great 

 importance that there should be made as soon as possible in the Inter- 

 national Weights and Measures Office a new comparison between the unit- 

 lengths of the old French system and of the metric system. 



The whole passage, though not so intended, is a powerful 

 iiidietment of the pseudo-science which wantonly cast aside 

 an established and useful standard for a newly devised and 

 nondescript substitute. Professor Foerster, it may be ob- 

 served in passing, does not speak disparagingly or contemptu- 

 ously of the old inch-and-foot scale ; but, on the contrary, 

 acknowledges its "great scientific and practical value" — as 

 British folk will begin to do after they have lost it, if the 

 metrists have their way. It may be as well to explain, how- 

 ever, how this dependence of the accuracy of the metric 

 standard on the ancient Paris standards arose. Of course, 

 the arc of the meridian could not be measured in ''metres," 

 because that measurement was a preliminary to its establish- 

 ment ; and the surveyors necessarily made use of the autho- 

 ritative scale which it was their purpose to supersede. The 

 meter is usually described as equal to 36-9413 French or 

 39-3708 English inches. Its precise length, however, was 

 reduced to French lines, of which it equals 443-296, and to 

 this standard it would require to be referred should any ques- 

 tion hereafter arise. Evidently there is considerable vitality 

 in the old inch-and-foot scale still, even where it has been 

 most rigorously suppressed ; and in the coming Battle of the 

 Standards for the supremacy of the world it may yet come off 

 victor. By clearing the field of all inch-and-foot systems 

 save the British it has greatly simplified the issue. What 

 the result of the conflict will be it would be idle to predict ; 

 but there can be no question that the fittest will survive if the 

 English-speaking world, awakening to the importance of its 

 trust, remains united, and "England to herself be true." 



