A difference was found by this comparison of only ·00017 millimètre or 1/160000 inch, which being only 1/100 of an inch in a mile is inappreciable.
FRANCE.
The standard of length of the système ancient was the toise of 6 pieds, divided into 12 pouces of 12 lignes each.
The origin of the toise is not known, but it was probably legally established by Philip Le Bel, about 1300, as he first appears to have taken steps toward a uniform system of measures in France. In the 13th century the toise is mentioned by Ch. Le Rains. In the 14th century Menongier writes that, in marching, the sight should strike the ground 4 toises in front. In the fifteenth century Pereforest brings in the toise, and in the sixteenth century the Contume de Berry says, “We use in this country two toises; one for carpenters of 5 pieds and a half, the other for masons of 6 pieds.”
Picard used the toise in his measurement of an arc of meridian from Malvoisin to London in 1669.
The meridians measured by the Academy in 1735 to settle the question of the figure of the earth were made by means of two standard toises, known as the “Toise du Nord,” and the “Toise du Sud.”
The first, used by Maupertuis, Clairault, and Le Monnier, in Lapland, was destroyed by immersion in sea-water, when their ship was wrecked on the return voyage.
The second, with which La Condamine, Bourgner, and Godin operated in Peru, was the original of the toise Canivet made in 1768, and of the standards used in determining the mètre.
The commencement of the move for a scientific standard of length in France which resulted in the mètre was in 1790, when the revolutionary government proposed to England the formation of a commission of equal numbers from the English Royal Society and the French Academy, for the purpose of fixing the length of the seconds pendulum at latitude 45° as the basis of a new system of measures. This proposal was not favorably received, and the Academy, at the request of government, appointed as a commission Borda, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge, and Condorcet, to decide whether the seconds pendulum, the quarter of the equator, or the quarter of a meridian, should be used as the natural standard for the new system of measures. They settled on the last as best for the purpose, and resolved that the ten millionth of the meridian quadrant, or distance from equator to pole, measured at sea level, be taken for basis of the new system, and be called a mètre.
Delambre and Mechin were at once charged with re-measurement of the meridian surveyed in 1739 by La Caille and Cassini, from Dunkirk to Perpignan, and its extension to Barcelona.