ABSTRACT
The ‘reference scale’ was therefore devised to be quite an institution in the Pyramid measures, and was contained in a huge box, some ten feet long and eight inches square in cross, on one hand, with neatly prepared contact pieces of gun-metal, for conveying to its own divisions the lengths of the several portable rods to be tested. On the other hand, with a microscopic beam-compass of extraordinary powers, for comparing its (the reference scale’s) divisions with those of a true standard measure. The reference scale was originally to have been of metal, and would then, in its great box, have been, for a few weeks, a very fair reference indeed for rectilinear length.
