Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
cussion away from the object to be attained and economy and custom should not
bias the argument. If Greenwich was chosen it would involve France in heavy sac-
rifices, willing to take on the sacrifices if others showed the same spirit: “If we are
approached with offers of self-sacrifice and thus receive proofs of sincere desire for
the general good, France has given sufficient proofs of her love of progress to make
her cooperation certain.”
The French delegation drew attention to the metric system because it was based
on the size of the Earth. The delegation commented that “we are still awaiting the
honor of seeing the adoption of the metrical system for common use in England.”
Additionally, Spain said it would vote for Greenwich if Britain and the United
States agreed to adopt the metric system. For the USA, Abbe said that the so-called
“neutral metric system” was in fact based on the French measurement of the meter,
and if the Germans or the British had carried out the measurements they might have
proposed something different. In fact Britain and the United States already used the
metric system for scientific measurement, and the British delegation joked that it
was England that was making a sacrifice by
not
using the metric system.
22
The argument went back and forth and was essentially going nowhere. The
Conference was adjourned for a week and a subcommittee set up to decide on sub-
sidiary issues including the formulation of replies to people who had sent in written
evidence. When the Conference reconvened, Sanford Fleming, who had joined the
British delegation from the Dominion of Canada, urged the Conference to consider
the French proposition as Citizens of the World, not as spokesmen for particular
nationalities. If a neutral meridian was chosen it would have to be a new one as all
the others were “national.” Would everyone accept it or would it simply add to the
number of meridians in use? A neutral meridian was excellent in theory but entirely
beyond practicality.
Fleming then provided evidence that seems to have been the turning point of the
Conference. It was a table showing that two-thirds of the world's ships and three-
quarters of its tonnage already used the Greenwich Meridian. Ten percent used the
Paris Meridian and Cadiz, Naples and Christiana accounted for about 5% each.
Greenwich was the palpable choice but unfortunately it was a national meridian,
said Fleming. He proposed that the Prime Meridian should be at 180° to Greenwich,
in the Pacific Ocean, lying along a virtually uninhabited line used by navigators as
a date line. Longitude would be calculated from here and not expressed as east or
west from Greenwich.
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As we have already seen, Britain adopted the metric system 100 years later, although the British
system is still in popular use. It may well pass soon into complete obsolescence as the current
generation of schoolchildren grow to maturity, since they are taught the metric system and find the
British system used by their parents quaint, rather than traditional and familiar. The French still
believe that Britain sticks with its old system because they drink beer in traditional pints when they
visit. British Eurosceptics passionately argue against the imposition from Brussels of a European
standard, and stick-in-the-mud members of the British Houses of Parliament still argue with nos-
talgia the merits of the familiar and the traditional. They are all unaware that metricization in
Britain has happened.
