HAÜY, René-Just. Instruction abrégée sur les mesures déduites de la grandeur de la terre, uniformes pour toute la république et sur les calculs relatifs a leur division décimale . Paris: Marchant, Prault, Bertait et Montgela, an II [1794]. 8 o (212 x 132 mm). Three engraved plates. Original pink wrappers (spine reinforced with tissue). Provenance : Segioulot? (inscription on front cover: "Segioulot philosophe.") FIRST EDITION of the introduction of the metric system into France. After the dissolution of the royal academies, Haüy became secretary of the Commission on Weights and Measures. In 1790 the French National Assembly asked the commission to select a fundamental unit of length to replace the various regional systems then in use. It was decided that the fundamental unit of length should be derived from a dimension of the earth: one ten-millionth part of a quadrant of the earth's meridian extending between Dunkirk and Barcelona. In 1795 a law was passed introducing the metric system into France with provisional standards. Norman 1504.
HAÜY, René-Just. Instruction abrégée sur les mesures déduites de la grandeur de la terre, uniformes pour toute la république et sur les calculs relatifs a leur division décimale . Paris: Marchant, Prault, Bertait et Montgela, an II [1794]. 8 o (212 x 132 mm). Three engraved plates. Original pink wrappers (spine reinforced with tissue). Provenance : Segioulot? (inscription on front cover: "Segioulot philosophe.") FIRST EDITION of the introduction of the metric system into France. After the dissolution of the royal academies, Haüy became secretary of the Commission on Weights and Measures. In 1790 the French National Assembly asked the commission to select a fundamental unit of length to replace the various regional systems then in use. It was decided that the fundamental unit of length should be derived from a dimension of the earth: one ten-millionth part of a quadrant of the earth's meridian extending between Dunkirk and Barcelona. In 1795 a law was passed introducing the metric system into France with provisional standards. Norman 1504.
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