8119. STANDARD (Measures), Universal.—[continued].
I do not like the new
system of French measures, because not the
best, and adapted to a standard accessible to
themselves exclusively, and to be obtained by
other nations only from them. For, on examining
the map of the earth, you will find no
meridian on it but the one passing through their
country, offering the extent of land on both
sides of the 45th degree, and terminating at
both ends in a portion of the ocean which the
conditions of the problem for an universal
standard of measures require. Were all nations
to agree, therefore, to adopt this standard, they
must go to Paris to ask it; and they might
as well long ago have all agreed to adopt the
French foot, the standard of which they could
equally have obtained from Paris.—
To Dr. Patterson. Washington ed. vi, 11.
(M.
1811)
