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

APPENDIX B
The results of the computations gave the distance from the pole to the equator
as 5,130,740 toises, with the length of the meter 3 pieds 11.296 lignes. The weight of a
cubic decimeter of distilled water at maximum density gave the value 18,827.15 grains
(a submultiple of the livre poids de marc), which was adopted as the weight of the
kilogram.4
THE METER AND KILOGRAM OF THE ARCHIVES
Construction in platinum of the prototype meter and kilogram was completed in
June 1799, for deposit in the Archives of the Republic. Iron copies of these standards
were then made and distribuied among the committee delegates as models for the con-
struction of their new weights and measures. 0n December 10 the provisional meter
was abolished and the new standards adopted by statute as the definitive standards of the
measures of length and of weight throughout the Republic.5 The grand plan of unifying
weights and measures was completed. -
One of the iron copies of the Meter of the Archives, the gift of Trailes to his
friend Hassler, and destined to be known in the United States as the "Committee
Meter," was brought to this country by Hassler in 1805. He also brought a copy of the
kilogram, another gift of Tralles, and 3 toises, the rival of the meter in France until
late in the 19th century.
In financial distress, Hassler in 1806 sold these standards to a member of the
American Philosophical Society. They were loaned to him when he became Superin-
tendent of Weights and Measures in the Coast Survey, his Committee Meter serving as the
standard of length in the Coast Survey until 1890. With other standards secured by
Hassler abroad, it is now preserved in the vault of the National Bureau of Standards.°
The advantages of the metric system then as now resided in its simplicity, uniform.
ity, and convenience. It is entirely decimal, like our system of counting.7 The measures
of area, capacity, and volume are obtained by squaring and cubing measures of length.
Weights are directly related to the measures of volume. And the names of their multiples
and submultiples are obtained by the simple addition of prefixes to the principal unit,
-for example, kilo (k) =1,000; hecto (h)=100; deka (dk)=10; deci (d)=0.1; centi
(c) =0.01; milli (m) =0.001. Thus a kilometer is 1,000 meters, and a milligram is
a thousandth (0.001) of a gram.8
But the metric system was not beyond cavil. Lukewarm to pronounced opposition
under the succeeding imperial government confronted the- standards established by the
Hallock and Wade, p. 62.
p. 63.
The metric and English weights and measures acquired by or available to Hassler for
his survey of the coast are described in his report to Congress, H. Doe. 299, 22d Cong., 1st
Sess., 1832.
The metric system is a decimal system, but the terms "metric" and "decimal" are not
synonymous. The decimal system, of oriental origin, refers to a numbers system pro-
gressing by tens, based on the biological fact that man has that many articulate fingers.
Equally arbitrary and useful numbers systems have been based on 2, 5, 6, 8, and the
duodecimal system of 12.
In 1962 the International Committee on Weights and Measures added two new metric
prefixes (atto, the submultiple 1018 and femto, to the scale already ranging from
tera, 1012 to pico, See NBS TNB 48, 61—62 (1964).
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