Interesting story on a survey and accurate map of the SE New England coast in
1844. It mentions that the U. S. Coast Survey used meters back then, and
describes laying out a baseline, and then building a triangulation grid.
Sadly, the author after explaining it was all measured in meters,
I like to present the metric system to college students by first getting
them to see the value of a decimalized system of accounting. I tell them
that Thomas Jefferson asked Congress in the 1790s (as Sec of State, not as
Prez) to decimalize the dollar when it was adopted as the nation’s
currency,
