Page 21 Advertisements Column 3

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21830, 17 December 1932, Page 21

Secret tests comparing the British luttional copy of the prototype metre with the standard international metre are no"-' being made at Sevres, near Paris. With elaborate precautions, one of the -.iiii f officials of the Board of Trade Standards Department took the British metre to Sevres for this 10-yearly comparison. There are only about 30 prototype metres in existence. They are H-shaped bars of iridio-platinnm, an alloy containing 90 per cent, of platinum, and each is worth hundreds of pounds. A metre is equivalent to 39.37 in and in cross-section the bars are about an inch square. The comparison with the standard metre will be made with gauges that measure differences of one ten-millionth of an inch. The tests will occupy several weeks.