Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/428

* METBE. 392 METRIC SYSTEM. composing the line. This is true, for example, of Latin and of Greek. In such languages as do not depend on the length of individual syllables for their verse systems, metre applies to the number of stresses or beats in a line, or on the number of counted syllables. This is true, for example, of the Germanic and the Romance languages, al- though attempts have been made to employ long and short syllables as in the ancient languages. See kusificatio.n. METRICAL FOOT. In versification, the designation of the rhythmical unit in a verse. In Circek or Latin poetry this unit may be com- l>osed of one or more syUables. all long, or short and long, in various arrangements, as the spon- dee, diictyl, atiapast, etc. In the Germanic and Romance languages the unit may I'e a single stres.sed syllable, or a combination of a stressed and one or more unstressed sylla- bles. The metrical foot is marke<l here not by quantity of individual syllables, but simply by this thesis or accentuation, which corresponds with the regular accentual system of the lan- guage, and not necessarily, as in Greek or Ro- man poetry, with a long syllable. See Vebsifi- CATIOX. METRIC SYSTEM (from Lat. metrum, from <.ik. K^r/ioi', measure, from /iCTfieh'^ to measure). A system of weights and measures invented by the French in the lafter part of the eighteenth century. From earliest times, civil- ized people hae possessed two ideas concern- ing their standards of weights and measures: that they should be invariable, and that their prototype should be found in nature. .- na- tions have zealously guarded their standards. The Hebrews deposited theirs in their temples, the Romans preserved theirs in the Temple of Jupiter; .lustinian standardized the weiglits and measures of the Empire and deposited them in a church in Constantinople. Dagobert (died in 038) kept the standards of the Franks in the King's palace, and modern nations preserve their units in special archives at their cai)ital cities. Great diversity in the kinds of vmits and in the size of the same units has always character- ized systems of measures. As early as 1558 Ilenrv" II. tried to correct the standard units of France, and a Gabriel Mouton. vicar of Saint Paul at Lyons proposed in IfiTO a system remarkably similar to the metric system of to- day. But not until 1790 did the French Gov- ernment undertake the making of a new system. For this purpose a committee of the .cademy of Sciences was a])pointed under the authority of the Xational -Vssembly and sanctioned by I^uis Wl. The committee consisted of Borda. Lagrange. Laplace. Monge. and Condorcet. Of the three linear bases proposed, the length of a seconds pendulum, a cpiarter of the terrestrial equator, and a quarter of a terrestrial meridian, the committee reported in favor of the last, one ten-millionth of which should lie the standard unit of linear measure. Delambre and Mechain were appointed tomeasurethe meridional distance from Dunkirk to Barcehma. the same tflsk which Cassini had undertaken in IfiTi!!. This task, difli- eult in itself, was made the niori' so by the politi- cal revolutions of the times, and required seven years for its completion. The finally computed length of the terrestrial quadrant was in part verified by a comparison with a similar result found by Bougucr and La Condamine in Peru (1736). The length, expressed in English meas- ure, is 32,808,St92 feet. Sir John Hersehel has since estimated the quadrant to be 32.813,000 feet, which makes the meter 1-208 of an inch shorter than one ten-millionth of a meridional quadrant. In 1793 a temporary commission of twelve was appointed, with Borda as president, to make a comparison of all the units then used in France, and to determine the kinds and com- position of the metals to be used in constructing the new standard units, their forms of construc- tion, and finally the place and means of their preservation. In 1708 the European States were invited to send representatives to a conference at Paris, the object being to examine the work exe- cuted during the preceding eight years by the various commissions. Xine States resjjonded. Their delegates, together with the ten French commissioners, were divided into couunittees, which reviewed the work so far accomplished. On June 22, 1799, the standard units, the meter and kilogram, were presented to the Coun- cil of Five Hundred, and deposited in the archives at Paris. In December of the same year the Council adopted these standards. The use of the new system, however, was not made obligatory in all departments until 1837. The hope of the inventors of the metric sys- tem, that it would become the imiversal system of all civilized nations, seems likely to be realized, for. in one century, its use has been made obligatory in Germany, Austria-Hungary. Bel- gium, Brazil, Chile. Argentina. Spain. France, Greece, Italy, ilexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Portugal. Rumania, Servia. Norway and Sweden, Switzerland, and Venezuela ; its use has been legalized in Egy])t, the United States. Great Britain. .Lipan. Russia, and Turkey. The popula- tions comprised in these two lists of nations are about equal, each l)eing nearly 300 millions. Several attempts have been made to introduce the French system in the United .States or to adopt a similar system. On .Linuary 15. 1790, Congiess ordered the Secretarv of State. Thomas .lelTerson. to prepare a uniform system of weights and measures. .lelVerson. who had been Minister to France, reported, on -July 14tli. a system founded on the length of a seconds pendulum in the 7nean latitude of the United States (38°), or in the latitude of 45°. But the Eng- lish system was not disturbed. Again, in 1821, Congress sought to revise the system of weights and measures, and .Tohn Qnine.v .dams. Secre- tarv of State, recommended in the strongest terms the adoption of the metric system. In ISfifi the law which made the metric system legal in the United States was passed. The same legislation directed that the 5-cent piece should weigh five grams and have a diameter of two centimeters; that the unit for weighing letters in post-offices shojild Iw the gram. B>it these details were imperfectlv carried out. The use of mits in electrical engineering, based on the metric system, was determined bv the law of 1894. Bills have been introduced into the House of Representatives several times, proposing to make the metric svstem obligatory. Tlic most recent bill of this kind was that of 1902. Al- though compulsorv legislation ma.v not be imme- diate, the adoption of the metric system is eon- stantlv extending, as shown by its use in weigh- ing foreign mail matter, in weighing at the