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WORLD H Y P O T H E S E S
 WORLD
HYPOTHESES
A Study in Evidence

BY

STEPHEN C.PEPPER

UNIVERSITY OF C A L I F O R N I A PRESS
Berkeley, Los Angeles and London
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, LTD.
LONDON, ENGLAND
COPYRIGHT, 1 9 4 2 , BY
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
COPYRIGHT RENEWED, 1 9 7 0 , BY
STEPHEN C. P E P P E R

ISBN 0-520-00994-0
LC CATALOG CARD NO. 42-37134

8 90

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 TO
ELLEN HOAR PEPPER
 Preface

T H E ORIGIN of this book goes 'way back to a consuming

personal desire to know the truth. As a boy I sought
it in what was nearest at hand in the doctrines of a church
and struggled with what I later found were the perennial
issues of theology. Then for a time I sought it in physics.
But physics seemed interested chiefly in measurements
and formulas and impatient with what might be the bear-
ing of these on the problems, like perception, that make
one want to know the truth. Later I discovered philosophy.
First I tried, under the guidance of Palmer and of T. H.
Green's writings, to believe in idealism. But the argu-
ments of this theory were then little better to me than
verbal formulas. I tried to make them mine, used to re-
peat them in the hope that they would take, feeling, rather
than knowing, that if they did take they would save some-
thing of my old theology. They did not take and I had a
revulsion against them and turned dogmatic materialist.
This I remained for many years, till 1 began to feel the
impact of Gestalt psychology and pragmatic doctrines.
And then the empirical grounds for that idealism which I
had not previously understood began also to make an im-
pression. All this was a slow, and as I look back upon it,
a maturing process.
Meanwhile the violent changes that were taking place
in social values were having their effect. Individualistic
democracy, which through the first quarter of the century
[villi
viii PREFACE
I naively accepted as the unquestionable social ideal, met
with severe jars, and became subject to criticism. As an
ideal it obviously required revision. It was in active com-
petition with other political ideals. What were the grounds
and evidences for any of these political creeds?
Having been shaken out of one dogmatism, I was on
guard against falling into another. It was, moreover, a
specially vivid revelation to discover the evidential force
of a theory I had once verbally mumbled and utterly failed
to comprehend. It was also pretty clear that materialism
and idealism would not consistently go together. For a
time I tried to find an adjustment of the evidences of both
of these theories in a third, pragmatism. But I soon came to
the conclusion that pragmatism was just one more theory,
probably no better nor any worse than the other two. I
began to wonder if there were not still more theories, not
sufficiently worked over, containing grounds of evidence
as convincing as these.
By now my old drive for the truth was directed toward
the study of evidence and hypothesis—toward a reliable
method rather than a reliable creed. And at this moment
the logical positivists appeared on the scene with a nos-
trum made to order just along these lines. My immediate
reaction to them was suspicious and hostile. I felt from
their attitude and the tone of their statements, even before
critically studying them, that they were not meeting the
problem that needed to be met. I doubted if many of them
had ever fully felt the problem. This was a question of
truth and of the justification of human values. To think
that this question could be met in the manner of a puzzle
 PREFACE ix

and in terms of correlations, statistics, mathematics, and

language struck me as fantastic. Here was method running
away with issues, evidence, and value itself. It was, as
Loewenberg once remarked, methodolatry.
But the attack of the positivists on world theories did
bring out the fact that there was more in physics which
stood on its own feet without support of theory than I had
previously been willing to allow.
Now all this material seems to have come to a sort of
stability in the book that follows. Here I believe is the
truth about these things, as near as we can get at it in our
times. Or rather, here is the attitude and here are some of
the instruments that can bring it to us.
At the very least, here is the solution that seems best to
one man, living in the first half of the twentieth century,
who has passed through most of the cognitive experiences
we have been subject to: religious creed, philosophical
dogma, science, art, and social revaluation.
Possibly here is also a present crystallization of some
twenty-five centuries' struggle and experience with the
problem of how men can get at the truth in matters of im-
portance to them.
 Table of Contents
CHAPTER PACE

PART O N E : T H E ROOT-METAPHOR THEORY

I. The Utter Skeptic 1

1. World Hypotheses as Objects in the World
2. The Position of the Utter Skeptic
II. Dogmatists 11
1. Definition of a Dogmatist
2. The Constituents of Belief
3. Conviction and Credibility
4. Criteria of Belief
5. The Dogma of Infallible Authority
6. The Dogma of Self-evident Principles
7. The Dogma of Indubitable Fact
8. Legitimate Uses of Authority and Certainty
III. Evidence and Corroboration 39
1. Common Sense
2. Tension between Common Sense and Refined
Knowledge
3. Types of Corroboration in Refined Knowledge
4. Data
5. Data and Positivists
IV. Hypotheses 71
1. Views about Hypotheses
2. Scope and Precision
3. World Hypotheses Demanded by Structural
Corroboration
4. World Hypotheses Include Data
5. Evidence and Interpretation Merged in World
Hypotheses
6. Structural versus Conventionalistic Hypotheses
Cxi]
xii T A B L E OF C O N T E N T S
CHAPTER PACE

V. Root Metaphors 84
1. Root Metaphors Induced from World Theories
2. Can Logical Postulates Make World Theories?
3. The Root-Metaphor Method
4. Maxim I: A World Hypothesis Is Determined by
Its Root Metaphor
5. Maxim II: Each World Hypothesis Is
Autonomous
6. Maxim III: Eclecticism Is Confusing
7. Maxim IV: Concepts Which Have Lost Contact
with Their Root Metaphors Are Empty
Abstractions
VI. Examples of Inadequacies in World
Hypotheses 115
1. Tests of Adequacy
2. The Animistic World Hypothesis, an Example
of Inadequate Precision
3. An Example of Empty Abstractionism
4. The Mystic World Hypothesis, an Example of
Inadequate Scope
5. An Example of Eclecticism

PART T W O : T H E R E L A T I V E L Y A D E Q U A T E H Y P O T H E S E S

VII. A General View of the Hypotheses . . . 141

1. Comparisons among the Four Hypotheses
2. The Trends of Eclecticism
3. The Approach to the Four Hypotheses
VIII. Formism 151
1. Root Metaphor and Categories of Immanent
Formism
2. The Theory of Types
3. Classes
4. Root Metaphor and Categories of Transcendent
Formism
 TABLE OF C O N T E N T S

5. Amalgamation of the Immanent and the Tran-

scendent Categories of Formism
6. Concrete Existence
7. Truth in Formism
8. The Transition to Mechanism
I X . Mechanism 186
1. Two Poles of Mechanism
2. The Mechanistic Root Metaphor
3. The Mechanistic Categories
4. Discrete Mechanism
5. Consolidated Mechanism
6. Secondary Categories
7. Mechanistic Theory of Truth
X . Contextualism 232
1. The Contextualistic Root Metaphor
2. Derivation of the Contextualistic Categories
3. Quality
4. Strands and Context of Texture
5. References of Strands
6. Individual Textures
7. Operational Theory of Truth
X I . Organicism 280
1. The Root Metaphor of Organicism
2. The Categories of Organicism
3. An Illustration
4. Application of the Categories
5. Time and Truth

P A R T T H R E E : SUMMARY, CRITICISMS, AND A N S W E R S

XII. Review and Conclusions 317

1. A Review of the Argument
2. The Criticisms
3. The Answers
 PART ONE

The Root-Metaphor Theory

Exploring the Variety of Random
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Title: Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France

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MEASURES OF UNITED STATES, GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE ***
 Standard Measures
OF
UNITED STATES,
GREAT BRITAIN, AND
FRANCE.

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.

 INTRODUCTION.
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.
 STANDARD MEASURES.
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.
Every author appears to assume the right of using his own
judgment as to what reduction is to be considered the most exact,
and the result is a very confusing difference in apparently exact
figures, with nothing to show how these differences arise.
I have endeavored to indicate what may be the cause of this
confusion by giving the figures of actually observed comparisons and
reductions; in a manner, the roots of the figures used as statements
of length.
Sir Joseph Whitworth gives 1/40000 of an inch as the smallest
length that can be measured with certainty, with an ultimate
possibility of 1/1000000 of an inch; but imperceptible variations of
temperature affect these infinitesimal lengths to such an extent that
he believes the limit can only be reached at a standard temperature
of 85° F., to avoid the effect of heat of the body.
It appears to me that comparisons should be made of double
yards and mètres with the old French toise, as the limit of exactness
would be thereby doubled.
 Another great defect in statements of relative values is the
omission of necessary facts—the material of which the bars or
standards are made, the temperature at which comparison was
made, and the standard temperatures used as to the final reduction,
with the coefficient of expansion adopted.
Again, bars of different metals appear in time to sensibly change
their relative length.

ENGLISH STANDARDS OF LENGTH.

The first establishment of a uniform standard appears to have
been made in 1101 by Henry I., who is said to have fixed the ulna
(now the yard) at the length of his arm; but nothing definite was
done till 1736, when the Royal Society took steps toward securing a
general standard, and in 1742 they had a standard yard made by
Graham from a comparison of various yards and ells of Henry VII.
and Elizabeth, that were kept in the Exchequer.
Two copies of the Royal Society standard yard were made by Bird
in 1758 for a committee of Parliament, one of which was marked
“standard of 1758,” and the other 1760. But no exact legal standard
was yet established, as shown by comparisons in 1802 of the various
standard measures in use which Pictet, of Geneva, made with an
accurate scale by Troughton, using means exact to the ten
thousandth part of an inch, with the following results at the
temperature of 62° F.:

Troughton Scale 36·00000 inches.

Parliamentary Standard (1758, Bird) 36·00023 “
Royal Society “ (1760, “ ) 35·99955 “
“ “ (Graham) 36·00130 “
Exchequer “ 35·99330 “
Tower “ 36·00400 “
Gen. Roy “ (Trig. Survey) 36·00036 “
 Parliament finally undertook to reform the measures of England,
and appointed a commission in 1818, under whose authority Capt.
Kater compared the standard yards then in use with the following
results, as referred to the Indian Survey standard:

Col. Lambton Standard (Indian Survey) 36·000000 inches.

Bird’s Standard (1760) 36·000659 “
Sir Geo. Schuckburgh’s Standard 36·000642 “
Ramsden’s Bar. Ordnance Survey 36·003147 “
Gen. Roy’s Scale 36·001537 “
Royal Society Standard 36·002007 “

The commission reported in favor of adopting Bird’s standard of

1760, as it differed so slightly from Sir George Schuckburgh’s
standard (which had been used in deducing the value of the French
mètre) that those values could be assumed as correct. They also
established the length of the seconds pendulum at level of sea in
London and in vacuo as 39·13929 inches. The seconds pendulum
had been previously fixed by Wollaston and Playfair in 1814 as
39·13047 inches.
On this report, an Act of Parliament in 1823 declared the only
standard measure of length for the United Kingdom to be the yard
as given by the distance at 32° F. between two points in gold studs
on the brass bar, made by Bird, and marked “Standard of 1760,” and
in the keeping of the Clerk of the House of Commons; also it
referred this standard yard to the natural standard of a pendulum
vibrating seconds of mean solar time at the level of the sea, in vacuo
at London and temperature of 32° F., as in the proportion of 36 to
39·13929; so that a pendulum 36 inches long ought to make
90088·42 vibrations in 24 hours.
The Royal Society had a copy of the legal standard made by Bailey
in 1834; and in the same year the Parliamentary standard was
destroyed by fire at the burning of the Houses of Parliament, leaving
the kingdom again without a legal standard.
 All attempts made by a commission consisting of Airy, Bailey,
Herschel, Lubbock, and Sheepshanks, to restore the standard by
means of the seconds pendulum failed in exactness, on account of
the many conditions of a vibrating pendulum, and recourse was had
to the Royal Society standard, which had been carefully compared by
Captain Kater in 1818, and from this in 1838 Bailey and
Sheepshanks made six bronze bars, one inch square, and 38 inches
long, which in 1855 were legalized by Act of Parliament, and the
English standard of length defined as follows:
“That the straight line on distance between the centres of the
transverse lines in the two gold plugs on the bronze bar deposited in
the Exchequer shall be the genuine standard yard at the
temperature of 62° Fahrenheit; and if lost, it shall be replaced by
means of its copies.”
The French metrical system was made legal permissively in 1864,
at the length established by Captain Kater, referred to in Act of
Parliament of 1823, of 1 mètre equal to 39·37079 inches, or
3·28089916 feet.
These are the standards now in use in the United Kingdom.

UNITED STATES.
By the Constitution of the United States Congress is charged with
fixing the standard of measures (Art. 1, sec. 8); but as no enactment
has been made by Congress, the standard yard in England, which
was legal previous to 1776 in the Colonies, is the standard yard of
the United States, and does not differ with the English standard
yard.
Under resolution of Congress in 1830, Mr. Hassler was employed
to examine the standards in use.
Considerable discrepancies were found, but the mean of all
examined corresponded very nearly with the English standard, and
in 1832 the recommendation of Mr. Hassler was adopted, and the
standard yard defined as the distance between the 27th and 63d
inch marks, at the temperature of 62° F., on the brass scale 82
inches long, being an exact copy of Sir George Schuckburgh’s
standard, made by Troughton, of London, for the Coast Survey, and
deposited in the Office of Weights and Measures at Washington.
In 1836 an Act of Congress ordered standards to be sent to each
Governor of a State, and the work was done under direction of Mr.
Hassler.
In 1856, two copies of the English standard yard, as restored after
destruction of the original standard by fire in 1834, No. 11 of bronze,
and No. 57 of Low Moor wrought iron, were presented to the United
States by Airy.
The United States Troughton standard bar being compared with
No. 11 was found to be longer by 0·00085 inch, or in proportion of 1
to 1·0000237216, about 1½ inches in a mile, according to Report of
Secretary of Treasury in 1857.
Later comparisons made by J. E. Hilgard, of the Coast Survey, at
the British Standards Office, between No. 11 and the standard
imperial yard, give No. 11 as 0·000088 inch shorter, or it would be of
standard length at temperature of 62·25° F.
We may infer that the Troughton standard is too long by 0·000762
inch, or would be standard length at temperature 59·77° F. instead
of at 62° by making expansion reduction with Airy’s coefficient for
the bronze of the imperial standards, 0·000342 inch per yard for 1°
F.
The mètre was made a legal standard permissively in 1866; the
United States mètre standard being one of the 12 iron mètre bars
made and verified for the French Government in 1799 on the
adoption of the metrical system, and brought to America by Mr.
Hassler in 1800, the relative value being fixed by Act of Congress at
39·37 inches.
The relative value of 39·36850154 United States inches, as
obtained by Mr. Hassler, corrected to 62° F., was used by the Coast
Survey till 1868, when it was found advisable to use the relative
value of 39·3704 as deduced by Clarke. Since 1800 several standard
mètre bars were sent to the United States by the French
Government, and on comparison, there appearing to be a slight
discrepancy, the original iron standard mètre bar was sent to Dr. F.
A. P. Barnard in Paris, and in 1867 it was compared with the French
platinum standard, which is only used once in ten years to verify
other standards.
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.
Operations were commenced in 1792, and carried on with great
accuracy to completion in 1799; Delambre working between Dunkirk
and Paris, and Mechin between Paris and Barcelona.
The distance measured from Dunkirk to Barcelona was 9° 40´
24·24´´ of arc, or 1,075,059 mètres, as reduced to the new
standard.
The “toise de Peru” was the standard used in the work at a
temperature of 13° R.
Two base-lines were measured with Borda’s compensating bars of
brass and platinum; one at Melun, near Paris, 6076 toises long, and
the second at Perpignan, 6028 toises long, and though over 900,000
mètres apart, the calculated length differed by only 10 pouces.
This meridian was afterward, in 1806, extended by Gen. Roy to
Greenwich, on the north, and by Biot and Arago to Formentera, on
the south. The results, as given by Laplace in centesimal degrees
and mètres, are as follows:

Greenwich 57·19753° ·0 mètres.

Pantheon, Paris 54·27431° 292,719·3 “
Formentera 42·96178° 1,423,636·1 “

The middle of the arc being 50·079655° Cent., or 45° 4´ 18·0822

´´ Sexa., and the middle degree centesimal being very nearly
100,000 mètres.
The determination of the final result of these geodetic
measurements was referred to a committee of 20 members; 9
named by the French Government, and the others by the
governments of Holland, Savoy, Denmark, Spain, Tuscany, and of the
Cisalpine, Ligurian, and Swiss republics, on the invitation of France.
This committee established the meridian quadrant at 5,130,740
toises; making the mètre 0·513074 of the toise, or 36·9413 pouces,
or 443·296 lignes, and the toise 1·94903659 mètres.
Iron standard mètre bars, 12 in number were made by Borda, also
2 of platinum and 4 standard toise bars.
The 12 standard iron mètre bars were sent to different countries,
after being verified by the French Government, and on the 2d of
November, 1801, the mètrical système was legalized by France, and
the standard unit of length declared to be the ten millionth part of a
meridian quadrant of the earth, as defined by the distance at a
temperature of 0° Centigrade (32° F.) between two points on a
platinum bar in the keeping of the Academy of Science at Paris. This
standard bar is used only once every ten years for exact
comparisons, as stated by Dr. F. A. P. Barnard.
 About 1837 Bessel, by a combination of 11 measured arcs of
meridian, deduced the quadrant of meridian as 5,131,179·81 toises
instead of 5,130,740 toises, as fixed by law. This would make to
quadrant 10,000,565·278 legal mètres, or would increase the mètre
length from 443·296 lignes to 443·334 lignes, agreeing very nearly
with result obtained by Airy in 1830, from a combination of 13
measured arcs.
The following are the measured arcs used by Bessel and Airy; the
combinations being indicated by initial letters, A and B.

Measurer. Mid. Lat. Arc. Length.

B.— Svanberg, + 66° 20 10·0 1° 37 19·6 593,277 feet
Sweden ´ ´´ ´ ´´
A.— Maupertuis, + 66° 19 37·0 0° 57 30·4 351,832 “
Sweden ´ ´´ ´ ´´
A.— Struve, + 58° 17 37·0 3° 35 5·2 1,309,742 “
Russia ´ ´´ ´ ´´
B.— Struve and + 56° 3´ 55·5 8° 2´ 28·9 2,937,439 “
Tenner, ´´ ´´
Russia
B.— Bessel and + 54° 58 26·0 1° 30 29·0 551,073 “
Bayer, Prussia ´ ´´ ´ ´´
B.— Schumacher, + 54° 8´ 13·7 1° 31 53·3 559,121 “
Denmark ´´ ´ ´´
A, B Ganss, + 52° 32 16·6 2° 0´ 57·4 736,425 “
.— Hanover ´ ´´ ´´
A.— Roy and + 52° 35 45·0 3° 57 13·1 1,442,953 “
Kater, ´ ´´ ´ ´´
England
B.— “ + 52° 2´ 19·0 2° 50 23·5 1,036,409 “
“ ´´ ´ ´´
“
A.— Lacaille and + 46° 52 2·0 8° 20 0·3 3,040,605 “
Cassini, ´ ´´ ´ ´´
 France
A, B Delambre + 44° 51 2·5 12° 22 12·7 4,509,832 “
.— and Mechin, ´ ´´ ´ ´´
France
A.— Boscovich, + 42° 59 ·0´´ 2° 9´ 47·0 787,919 “
Rome ´ ´´
A.— Mason and + 39° 12 ·0´´ 1° 28 45·0 538,100 “
Dixon, ´ ´ ´´
America
A, B Lambton, + 16° 8´ 21·5 15° 57 40·7 5,794,598 “
.— India ´´ ´ ´´
A, B Lambton and + 12° 32 20·8 1° 34 56·4 574,318 “
.— Everest, India ´ ´´ ´ ´´
A, B Lacondamine, - 1° 31 0·4 3° 7´ 3·5 1,131,050 “
.— Peru ´ ´´ ´´
A.— Lacaille, Cape - 33° 18 30·0 1° 13 17·5 445,506 “
Good Hope ´ ´´ ´ ´´
B.— Maclear, - 35° 43 20·0 3° 34 34·7 1,301,993 “
“ ´ ´´ ´ ´´
“
A.— Plana and ——————— 1° 7´ 31·1 ——————
Cartessi, ´´
Piedmont

The following different lengths of the mètre have been obtained:

As adopted by France, 1801 443·296 lignes.

According to Delambre 443·264 “
“ Bessel 443·33394 “
“ Airy 443·32387 “
“ Clarke 443·36146 “
From Peru Meridian 443·440 “

The length of a pendulum vibrating 100,000 times in a mean solar

day was determined in numerous careful experiments by Biot, Arago,
and Mathieu, in mètres of 443·296 lignes, as follows:

Dunkirk 56·67 lat. 0 above 0·7419076 mètres.

Cent. sea
Paris 54·26 “ 65 “ 0·7418870 “
“ by 54·26 “ 0 “ 0·7416274 “
Borda
Bordeau 49·82 “ 0 “ 0·7412615 “
Formentera 42·96 “ 196 “ 0·7412061 “

Borda also determined the length of the seconds pendulum at

Paris, in vacuo:

First result 440·5595 lignes = 0·9938267 mètre.

Second result “ “ = 0·9938460 “
As given by Ganot “ “ = 0·9935 “

In 1812 the système usuelle was established, of which the unit

was one third of the mètre, with the old name of pied, and
duodecimally divided into pouces and lignes.
This system continued in use till 1840, when it was abolished by
law, and the names of pied, pouce, and ligne forbidden under
penalties. So the mètre, decimally divided, remains the only legal
measure of length in France.

COMPARISONS OF UNITED STATES AND

ENGLISH STANDARDS.
In 1832, under resolution of Congress, Mr. Hassler compared the
different standard yards in America, with the following results, using
the yard between the twenty-seventh and sixty-third inches on the
scale made of bronze by Troughton, of London, for the United States
Coast Survey, as the reference, that being identical with Sir George
Schuckburg’s standard:
Troughton Scale, mid. yard 36·0000000 inches.
“ “ between platinum points 35·9989758 “
Jones yard in State Department 35·9990285 “
Iron yard in Engineer Department 35·9987760 “
Brass yard, Albany, Sec. of State 36·0002465 “
Gilbert yard, University of Virginia 35·9952318 “

In 1856 the Troughton standard bronze scale was compared with

the bronze standard yard No. 11, which was sent over by Airy as a
copy of the English imperial standard, as restored after destruction
of the original standard by fire in 1834, and the United States
standard was found to be longer by 0·00085 inch.
Later comparisons by J. E. Hilgard, of the Coast Survey, of the
bronze standard No. 11 with the imperial standard yard, at the
British Standards Office, gave No. 11 as 0·000088 shorter than the
imperial standard.
Hassler’s reduction of the mètre, as deduced by Beach at 62° F.,
39·36850154, compared with the English reduction of the mètre,
39·37079 inches, gives an excess to the United States Standard of
0·002029 inch.
The following reductions have been given for the United States
yard in English inches:

Report of Sec. of Treas., 1857 36·00087 = 1·00002416

Chambers’ Encyclopædia, 1872 36·00087
“ “ 36·0020892 =
“ 1·0000580334
Trautwine 36·0020894 = 1·000058038
Mathewson, U. S. surveyor 36·00208944 = 1·00005804
Hassler and Beach 36·002092 = 1·00005811
J. E. Hilgard, Coast Survey 36·00076 = 1·000021

To Mr. Hassler’s reduction the name of United States inch has been
applied; but his reduction is not correct, as he used a rate of
expansion for brass deduced by himself of 0·0003783 inch in one
yard for 1° F., and later experiments show that the smaller rate of
0·000342, deduced by Airy, is more correct.
By correcting Hassler’s reduction with the later rate of expansion,
J. E. Hilgard shows that the difference would be very small, or only
36·0002286 = 1·00000635, or about ⅖ of an inch in a mile.
In Coast Survey report for 1876, J. E. Hilgard calls attention to
another difficulty in the matter of extreme accuracy, in the
uncertainty with regard to the permanence in the length of a bar,
and states that the bronze standard bar No. 11 and the Low Moor
iron standard bar No. 57, presented to the United States by Great
Britain, are found to have changed their relative length by 0·00025
inch in 25 years; the bronze bar being now relatively shorter by that
amount. This subject, he states, is undergoing further investigation.

COMPARISON OF UNITED STATES AND

FRENCH STANDARDS.
In 1817 Mr. Hassler examined the French standards in America, for
the Coast Survey, using the Troughton bronze standard scale, which
is identical with Sir George Schuckburg’s standard, as the reference,
with the following results, all being reduced to temperature of 32° F.

Original Iron Mètre, 1799 39·381022708 inches.

Lenoir Iron Mètre, Coast Survey 39·37972015 “
“ Brass “ “ 39·380247972 “
“ “ “ Eng. Dept. 39·38052739 “
Canivet Iron Toise, 1768 76·74334472 “
Lenoir “ “ 76·74192710 “

In 1814 Troughton had compared with his own scale in London

two of the above.

Lenoir Iron Mètre, C. S. 39·3802506 inches.

 “ Brass “ “ 39·3803333 “

In 1832, under resolution of Congress, Hassler again compared

the French standards in the United States, using as before the
Troughton scale, and reducing all to temperature of 32° F. as
follows:

Original Iron Mètre, 1799 39·3808643 inches.

Lenoir “ “ C. S. 39·3799120 “
“ Brass Mètre C. S. 39·380447 “
“ “ Eng. Dept. 39·3801714 “
“ “ “ in 1829 39·3807095 “
Fortin “ State Dept. 39·3796084 “
“ Treas. “ 39·3795983 “
Iron Mètre “ “ 39·3807827 “
Gilbert “ Univ. of Virg. 39·365408 “
Platinum Mètre 39·3803278 “
“ (Nicollet) 39·380511 “
Canivet Iron Toise, 1768 76·74290511 “
Lenoir “ 1799 76·74047599 “

From the mean of his comparisons between the United States

brass Troughton standard yard and the authentic French standard
mètres used by the Coast Survey, Hassler, in 1832, deduced the
value of the mètre at 39·3809172 inches, at 32° F., and by
correction for expansion to United States standard temperature of
62° F., he made the mètre at 32° equal to 39·36850154 inches at
62° F.
The British imperial standard and the United States Troughton
standard differ by only 0·000762 inch, which applied to the English
reduction of 39·37079, would give 39·36996 as the relative value
according to Troughton standard.
The difference between these reductions is probably to be
attributed to the use of different rates of expansion, in correcting for
standard temperatures, which vary considerably, according to high
authority as follows for brass at 1° F.

Whitworth, 1876 0·00000956 = 0·00034416 in. per yard.

Borda, 1799 0·000009913 = 0·00035687 “
Smeaton, 1750 0·000010417 = 0·00037501 “
Hassler 0·000010508 = 0·0003783 “
Ramsden, 1760 0·000010516 = 0·0003786 “
Faraday, 1830 0·00001059 = 0·00038124 “

And for the bronze of which the British imperial standards are
made:

Airy and Sheepshanks 0·0000095 = 0·000342 in. per yard.

Fizeau 0·00000975 = 0·000351 “

The correction at Ramsden’s rate is nearly identical with Hassler’s,

and gives 39·3684933; at Whitworth’s rate it would give 39·36962,
very nearly the same as deduced from the difference between the
British Imperial standard and the United States Troughton standard.
The results of Sir Joseph Whitworth were obtained by use of all late
improvements for scientific precision, and they must be accepted as
most reliable.
It would appear preferable to give comparisons at the same
temperature in connection with the corrected result, so that
international comparisons of scientific measurements may not be
vitiated by accidental variations.

COMPARISON OF ENGLISH AND FRENCH

STANDARDS.
When the mètre standard was established in France, 1799, it was
compared with Sir George Schuckburg’s standard yard by Captain
Kater. The quadrant of 10,000,000 mètres, or 5,130,740 toises, was
determined to be 32,808,992 English feet, giving the mètre equal to
3·2808992 English feet, or 39·37079 inches, and the toise equal to
6·3945925921 English feet.
In 1814 Wollaston and Playfair, by comparison with the platinum
mètre standard at 55° F., deduced the mètre as equal to 39·3828
English inches.
During the geodetic operations of General Roy in 1802, who used
60° F. as standard temperature, Pictet’s comparisons, using means
capable of measuring the 10,000th part of an inch, gave the mètre
standard, which is used at 32° F. as standard temperature, at
39·3828 English inches; this corrected for temperature by Dr. Young,
gave 39·371 English inches at 62° F.; which result was confirmed by
Bird, Maskelyne and Laudale.
In 1823, by Act of Parliament on report of committee, the mètre is
fixed as 39·37079 English inches.
In 1800 the Royal Society, by comparison with two toise standards
sent by Lalande to Maskelyne, deduced the mètre as 39·3702
English inches.
Later comparisons by Clarke in the Ordnance Survey Office at
Southampton, in 1866, give the mètre as 39·37043 inches.
The French Academy of Sciences by comparison with Sir George
Schuckburg’s standard at temperature of 32° F., deduced the mètre
as 39·3824 English inches, which reduced to standard temperature
of 62° F., would be 39·3711, or slightly in excess of the value
deduced by Dr. Young from Pictet’s comparisons.
The legal value in England is one mètre equal to 39·37079, and
the latest reduction is 39·37043 inches by Clarke in 1866, which is
probably the most exact reduction.

DIFFERENT REDUCTIONS OF THE FRENCH TOISE INTO

ENGLISH FEET.