Instruction abrégée sur les mesures déduites de la grandeur de la terre, uniformes pour toute la République. . by [HAÜY, René Just] - 1794

Paris: Imprimerie Nationale Exécutive du Louvre, 1794. 1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Soft cover. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. An II [1793/94]. 8vo (213 x 140 mm). [2] iii-xiv, [1] 2-147 [1], [28] pp., including 3 engraved plates and weight conversion tables at end. Pages untrimmed and partially unopened. Original paste-paper wrappers, spine titled in manuscript, shelf-mark paper labels to front wrapper and lower spine (spine ends chipped, folds partially cracked, fraying). Text little age-toned, occasional minor spotting, marginal dust soiling, some fraying of fore-edges. A near fine and completely unsophisticated copy. ---- Norman 1504; Dibner 113 (unabridged edition). FIRST EDITION of the introductions to the metric system issued by the Temporary Commission on Republican Weights and Measures. This issue is a shorter and more elementary presentation restricted to those aspects of the system necessary for constructing the ordinary business of live (Norman 1504). "In 1791 the French national assembly voted to replace the old French unit of length (toise) with this new unit or metre, a decimal unit defined as 1:10,000,000 part of the meridian from equator to pole along the Paris meridian. This new system of measurement was one of the few permanent social reforms to result from the upheavals of the French revolution. In 1793/94 (the French revolutionary calendar year began in September), the Temporary Commission on Republican Weights and Measures published three introductory works to the metric system... which emphasized mathematics and theory; an 'abridged' introduction [this copy] containing a shorter and simpler presentation of the system; and a précis of the system for discribution to the public." (Norman 1499).