The Metric System in Great Britain.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 91, 14 October 1895, Page 3

The Metric System in Great Britain.

The report of the Committee on Weights and Measures, advocating the adoption of the metric system in Great Britain, has been reinforced (says the Pall Mall Gazette) by a proposal which the French delegates to the Geographical Congress were commissioned to place before the Government here. That is, that if the British Government will make the metric system obligatory throughout, the French Government, in return, will abolish the Paris meridian of longitude and accept that of Greenwich. This is a large concession for so jealous a nation to offer, and shows a revival of the spirit which led it at a famous period of its existence to attempt a scientific reform of the world. In any case, the advantages of .mutual action are indisputable, and the gain to science when all standards and bases are made universal is one not easily over-rated. The French geographers propose, if their offer is accepted -and probably if it is not— to start the inauguration of a map of the world on a scale of one millionth, a large and expensive undertaking to which all nations are expected to contribute tneir share. Apart from that, it •will be a notable advantage to marine commerce as well as to science if the meridian of longitnde be fixed once for all, so that the numerous ephemerides at present in existence may all be reduced to one basis, or to one universal publication. ,