we find it so admirable.

I would answer, first, that the metre, as far as the measure is
derived from the dimensions of the earth, is not French, and it was
precisely to take away this character of nationality that those who
fixed on the metre sought to establish it on the dimensions of the
earth itself. What is French is the particular metre of our national
archives, which exhibits a very slight difference from that which our
actual geodesy would have given us. Also, I think that if, at the time
of the adoption of the Convention du Mêtre, in which the nations of
Europe participated, we had slightly changed the length of our
standard to make it agree with the result of actual geodetic
measurements, we should have done an excellent thing in depriving this
measure of any shadow of nationality. I agree with my honorable
colleague that if a few slight changes adopted by common accord could
perfect the metrical system, we French ought to have no motive for
opposing it. We have the honor of having invented a system of measures
which, being based upon considerations of a purely scientific nature,
has been accepted by all. Therefore if it can be said with truth that
the metre of the Archives of Paris is French, (not intentionally, but
because it bears the mark of an error of French origin,) it is an
international metre, by the same title that the discovery of the
satellites of Mars made by my friend, Prof. Asaph Hall, whom I have
the pleasure of seeing here, is scientific and of a universal nature.
The metre--equal to the ten-millionth part of the distance from the
equator to the pole--is no more French than that distance itself, and,
nevertheless, if the Americans, English, or Germans had measured it,
they would each have arrived at a slightly different metre.

Now, my honorable colleague adds that a neutral meridian appears to