Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/17

Rh taken in hand, and in no part of the world was reform more needed. It was decided to found a new system. A committee of savants took as a base what was at one time imagined to be the ten-millionth part of the meridian quadrant passing through Paris, as deduced from French geodetic measurements made in 1740. This supposed quarter circumference of the globe was divided into one hundred parts, which were each divided into one hundred kilometres, and the kilometres were cut up into one thousand sections, called metres. This became the pivotal point upon which the whole system turns, and gave it the name by which it has become known.

Though long and loudly acclaimed as the perfection of human wisdom, keen authorities upon the question have over and over again exposed the hollowness of any such pretension. For instance, Sir John Herschel took serious objection to the adoption, as a base, of the quarter circumference of the sphere in preference to its axis of revolution, which he considered "a blemish on the very face of the system, a sin against geometric simplicity." Seiss ﬂatly says "it is unscientiﬁc, notwithstanding its great pretensions to science," and points out "it is founded on a curved line instead of a straight one—follows a circumference for a measure of length instead of an axis or diameter," while, further, "it is inaccurate and untrue, as now admitted, by 1 too little in every 5300 parts."

Similar adverse scientiﬁc criticisms might be quoted. Still, as stated previously, the present object is not to plunge into this aspect of the question, and it would not have been referred to but as a means to clearing away