A few minutes I saw a news item on TV, about a group of young Americans visiting the man-made caves in the extreme south of my country. For anyone from the group who thinks about travelling to the Netherlands in the future, these caves are very interesting. The Tourist Office in Maastricht should have information. One of the largest cave systems is just south of Maastricht in a hill of limestone. It is always about 10 degrees in these caves. The Americans' visit was to this cave system. Part of the guides' explanation in English could be heard. He talked about thick layers of sediment at one point, that slowly formed the limestone. Then the Dutch printed sub-text translation stated something about a 100 m thick layer. The spoken text by the guide trailed somewhat behind. I was hoping that the guide would do the right thing, that he would not give in to ifp. Would he say 'the layer is 100 m thick' or would he say '330 ft thick' ? He used the metric value and it did not look as if the Americans objected to it.
Han Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
