es ae 
‘West American : 
Volume XI, January 1900. 
THE METRIC SYSTEM. 
By GrorGeE S. Hopeins, KinesTon, ONTARIO. 
There seems to be a sentiment existing in the minds of 
persons, both in England and America, that an appropriate roun 
ing up of the nineteenth century would be had in the compuls 
adoption of the metric system of weights and measures. 4 
essentially a scientific age, and the last fifty years has been mark 
by so many startling improvements in modes of transportation 
means of communication at a distance, in the development : 
utilization of the forces of nature for man ’s service—in short 8 
strides have been made in all the arts of peace and war, that 
large section of the community appear to regard the adoptior 
this system as the one thing needful to fitly crown the. scien) 
achievements of our rishi ea: age. 
The 
devised by the French savants of the First Republic. 
horn in an era when the obliteration of old landmarks an¢ 
lished customs appears to have been more an a. 
careful introduction of valuable improvenents. 
names given to the new months into which the year was then 
vi ied— Vendémiare, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivose, Pluvi ose, 
se, Germinal, Floréal, Prasial, Messidor, - Thermidor, 
and Sansculottides,—have survived only in eae! 
ephemeral growth of those troublous times. h 
then divided into three ee each tenth eee _ set 
8 
Bet N apoleon i in 1805 foal the nation to re 
established, though more prosaic year, as we know it. Kee 
The French metre was,2t the time of its introdm tion 
. to be an exact earth commensuruble quantity. It 
“trom the pole to the equator shiakied along the su 
water. It has since been proved that its supposed exac 
of this pontennee was a mistake. ‘ti is = that if | 
