Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

522 APPENDIX A
A new employment came in the autumn of 1829 when, impelled by want, Hassler
accepted an appointment as gager in the New York Custom House. Then his fortunes
began to look up. For some time Congress had been discussing the establishment
of standards of weights and measures for the United States. There was much talk
about the jeopardy to this country's international trade arising from the different
concepts of pounds and bushels entertained by the various collectors of customs. On
May 29, 1830, the Senate adopted a resolution directing a comparison of the weights
and measures used at the principal customhouses. Five months later, on November 2,
President Jackson placed Hassler in charge of the study, at $3,000 per year, to make
an inspection and review of the measures used in the customhouses.
After 3 months, Secretary of the Treasury Ingham reported Hassler's inspection
"far advanced; and it has exhibited such a remarkable disparity in the weights and
measures used at the different customhouses, as to demonstrate the urgent necessity of
providing standards for their regulation." Called in from the customhouses,
the standards, where any such existed, were transmitted to Washington, and
it soon appeared that they were of so irregular character, and so unworthy of
confidence, that the comparison of them, indefatigably pursued by Mr. Hassler,.
was a task entirely beneath his attention. The measure which proved the nearest
to the standard was a folding yard stick from Philadelphia, the length of which
is stated at 36.0002465 standard inches.'
With no authority but the approval of Secretary Ingham and the President,
Hassler determined to adopt standards for the United States and produce and distribute
them to the customhouses. From among the standards that he and Gallatin had secured
abroad many years earlier for the survey of the coast, Hassler selected the units to be
used for the construction and comparison of suitable weights and measures, and out
of his knowledge and skill began construction of the balances and other apparatus for
their verification. The fundamental. units of length, mass (weight), and capacity rec-
ommended by Hassler were adopted by the Treasury Department in 1832, and Fdward
Troughton Hassler, his 23-year-old son, was taken on to assist in the construction of
standards based on those units.'
Apprised by Treasury reports of Hassler's progress, Congress in a joint resolution
of June 14, 1836, gave its formal approval and directed the Treasury to fabricate for the
customhouses the standards of weights and measures that had been established—that is,.
established by Hassler. By reason of the joint resolution of 1836, the Office of Weights
and Measures in the Coast Survey, as the immediate antecedent of the present National
Bureau of Standards, is considered formally established as of that date.
Meanwhile, on July 10, 1832, 2 years after calling for the inquiry into the custom-
houses, Congress reestablished the Coast Survey on the basis of the original act of 1807.
Upon President Jackson's recommendation, Hassler again became its Superintendent, at
Report of Alexander D. Bache in J. Franklin Inst. 13, 238 (1834). Cited in Cajori,
p. 156, and available on L/C microfilm reel 283, series 01104.
H. Doc. 229, 22d Cong., 1st sess., 1832 (L/C: J66), is Hassler's report on his examination
in 1831 of the weights and measures used in the principal customhouses, and includes his
description of the collection of instruments available to him for constructing weights
and measures.
'The start of the work is described in Hassler's Documents Related to the Construction
of Standards of Weights and Measures for the Custom-Houses from March to November
1835 (New York: William van Norden, 1835). L/C: QC1000U58.