Raynors HCA 2019-05
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/30/2019
A rare early American imprint advocating the adoption of the metric system by the French Ambassador to the United States. Joseph Fauchet, minister plenipotentiary of the French Republic near the United States, to Mr. Randolph, secretary of state of the United States ([Philadelphia]: John Fenno, [1795]), 8pp., 202 x 127 mm. (8 x 5 in.), informing the United States about France's new system of weights and measures adopted in 1793. Evans 29722/ The volume reads, in small part: "The Board of Weights and Measures, in execution of a Decree of the Committee of Public Safety, has transmitted to Citizen Dombey a measure in copper and a weight decimally divided, both being conformable to standards which will soon be in use throughout the Republic. According to the Decrees of the National Convention our measure ought to be equal to the ten millionth part of the 4th part of a terrestrial meridian... and our weight ought to be equal to the weight of a cubic measure of distilled water having for its side the tenth part of the measure... We already know very nearly the length of the 4th part of a meridian, from the measures of several terrestrial arcs made in the last and present century by different astronomers. It results from their measures that the 45th degree of latitude contains 57,027 toises of France: now in supporting the Earth to be an eliptical spheroid of small eccentricity, the 45th degree is very nearly the mean term between all the other degrees, it will hence follow, that by multiplying 57,027 toises by 90 we shall have the length of the 4th part of a meridian..." EXTREMELY Rare. Evans 29722. Evans shows only seven copies in institutional holdings. Auction records reveal no copies appearing in the past 40 years. Lacking title page, minor, soiling, foxing, edge wear, overall very good condition.
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