46 TRANSACTIONS. 1901-2 



sequence, the large majority of the civilized nations, includ- 

 ing Russia, have adopted it and are enjoying its many advant- 

 ages and benefits. The only people outside of the pale of its 

 benefits is the English-speaking race, represented by the 

 British and Americans. 



It is now a hundred and ten years since the famous com- 

 mittee compossd of Laplace, Lagrange, Borda, Monge and 

 Condorcet, who were appointed at the instance of Talleyrand, 

 presented its report, advocating the adoption of a metric 

 system to the French Academy of Sciences. This action was 

 taken to cleanse the Augean stables of defective and heter- 

 ogeneous weights and measures. 



There were two distinct principles which occupied those 

 scientists iu devising a new system ; the one was that the 

 fundamental unit should be based on some physical constant 

 and therefrom always determinable, and the other that the 

 base of the system should be ten, that is the decimal system. 

 The constants which received consideration were the length 

 of the second pendulum, of the earth's equator, and of the 

 earth's meridian. As the seconds pendulum involved time 

 besides length, it was discarded ; as the equator was not so 

 available for measurement as a meridian, nor was thare any 

 reason for believing it to be more regular than a meridian, the 

 latter — a quadrant — was chosen as the constant. 



The quadrant was imagined to be divided into teii million 

 parts, and one part was designated a meter. Theoretically, 

 nothing remained to be done but to measure accurately the 

 angular distance between two places on or near the same 

 meridian, that is, their difference of latitude, and also the 

 linear measure between the respective parallels of latitude. 

 Whatever . ratio the difference of latitude bore to 90°, the 

 linear measure would then bear to ten million. Hence the 

 actual measure or length of the meter would be found. 



With our present knowledge of the figure of the earth, 

 and the high degree of precision that has been attained in 

 making comparisons of material measures, the quadrant is 



