There were 20 countries, including the United States, represented at the
1875 conference in Paris and on 1875 May 20 all but 3 of those countries
signed the treaty. The 3 countries that did not sign the treaty on that
date were Great Britain, Greece, and the Netherlands. The nations that
signed it on that date were (alphabetically) Argentina, Austria-Hungary,
Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Peru, Portugal,
Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States of
America, and Venezuela.
Wikipedia shows the date of 1878 for the United States. This was the
year in which the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty. President Hayes
"proclaimed" the treaty on 1878 September 27, following the exchange of
ratifications in Paris.
Signing and ratification are two separate steps in the treaty process.
The U.S. signed La Convention du mètre in 1875 and ratified it in 1878.
Sources: NBS Miscellaneous Publication 247 (1963 October), updated 1976
March as NBS Special Publication 447. NBS later became known as NIST.
Jim
Pat Naughtin wrote:
On 2008/08/07, at 8:18 AM, Ron Stone wrote:
Dear Pat,
I was reading the Metrication Timeline [2008 p 65] and read that 16
nations signed the Metre Convention during the final session. See
However the following web pages and the SI Brochure indicate that
Metre Convention was signed by 17 signatories during the final session.
http://www.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/metre_convention.pdf
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/metric-convention.html
Was there a reason for writing that there were 16? Or does this call
for a correction for the Metrication Timeline?
Cheers,
Ron
Dear Ron,
Thanks for your question. I always appreciate opportunities to improve
the metrication matters web page.
My first thought was that I had made a mistake, so I decided to check
again only to find that although Wikipedia agrees with the number you
suggest, 17, but then only lists 12 nations who signed the /Treaty of
the metre/ in 1875 and the USA was not one of them. Here is the
Wikipedia list sorted into chronological order. Note the first twelve
before Portugal.
I will copy this reply to the USMA mail list in case anyone else can
help us out with this intriguing problem.
Austria 1875
Belgium 1875
Denmark 1875
France 1875
Germany 1875
Italy 1875
Norway 1875
Russian Federation 1875
Spain 1875
Sweden 1875
Switzerland 1875
Turkey 1875
Portugal 1876
Argentina 1877
United States 1878
Serbia 1879
Venezuela 1879
Romania 1884
United Kingdom 1884
Japan 1885
Mexico 1890
Canada 1907
Chile 1908
Uruguay 1908
Bulgaria 1911
Thailand 1912
Brazil 1921
Czech Republic 1922
Slovakia 1922
Finland 1923
Hungary 1925
Ireland (already accepted as Ireland was part of the UK when the UK
signed) 1925
Poland 1925
The Netherlands 1929
Australia 1947
Dominican Republic 1954
India 1957
Korea Republic of [South] 1959
Indonesia 1960
Egypt 1962
South Africa 1964
Cameroon 1970
Pakistan 1973
Iran 1975
the People's Republic of China 1977
Korea Democratic Republic of [North] 1982
Israel 1985
New Zealand 1991
Singapore 1994
Greece 2001
Malaysia 2001
Cheers and thanks again for alerting me to this issue,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped
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