Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France / History and actual comparisons. With appendix on introduction of the mètre

HISTORY AND ACTUAL COMPARISONS.
WITH APPENDIX ON INTRODUCTION OF THE MÈTRE.
BY ARTHUR S. C. WURTELE, ASS’T ENG., N. Y. C. & H. R. R.
E. & F. N. SPON, NEW YORK: 44 MURRAY STREET. LONDON: 16 CHARING CROSS. 1882.
Copyright, 1882, by Arthur S. C. Wurtele.

During the preparation of this investigation of Standard Measures a large number of authorities were examined, including the following: Kelly’s “Universal Cambist,” Maunder’s “Weights and Measures,” “Encyclopædia Britannica,” “Chambers’ Encyclopædia,” Williams’ “Geodesy,” Hymer’s works, “Smithsonian Reports,” “Coast Survey Reports,” Herschel’s “Astronomy,” etc. The only concise and clear statement I found was J. E. Hilgard’s report to the Coast Survey on standards in 1876, which I was gratified to find coincides with my deductions.
Arthur S. C. Wurtele.
Albany, November 26, 1881.


A standard measure of length at first sight appears to be very simple—merely a bar of metal of any length, according to the unit of any country; and comparisons of different standards do not seem to present any difficulty. But on looking further into the thing, we find that standards are referred to some natural invariable length, and we are at once confronted with a mass of scientific reductions giving different values to the same thing, according to successively improved means of observation. We find, also, that comparisons of one standard with another differ, as given by reductions carried to great apparent exactness.