probably made in London

Scale

This porcelain scale (pictured here in its fitted case) was made in 1867, probably by Louis Casella, a scientific instrument maker based in London.

The scale shows the relationship between British inches and those of the Great Pyramid, as deduced by Charles Piazzi Smyth. Each Great Pyramid inch is .001 of an inch longer than the British inch.

Smyth noted that 25 Pyramid inches were one ten-millionth of the earth's semi-axis of rotation, and this, he claimed, made the Pyramid inch the most scientific unit ever proposed as a standard of length. As the 'Pyramid' inch was only marginally longer than a British inch, it would therefore be more sensible to adopt the Imperial system internationally rather than the other, metric, contender.

Record details

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Online ID:	000-190-004-745-C
Image Rights Holder:	National Museums Scotland
Project:	0098: National Museums Scotland Project description \| View all records in project
Ref:	National Museums Scotland T.1962.108
Date:	1867 May 1867
Material:	Ceramic base
Dimensions:	29.00" L x 4.00" x 0.50"; case 32.75" x 8.75" x 4.63"
What:	Comparative scale / case / thermometer
Subject:	19. MATHEMATICS (Departmental Classification)
Who:	C. Piazzi Smyth (User) Casella, London (Scale maker)
Where:	Egypt, Great Pyramid England, London
Event:
Description:	One of a set of metrological instruments used by C. Piazzi Smyth at the Great Pyramid - a comparative scale of British and Pyramid inches by Casella, ceramic base, in a case with a thermometer, 1867
References:	C. Piazzi Smyth, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1867 C. Piazzi Smyth, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, 4th edition London, 1880, esp. ch. 14, 'Linear and surface measure', pp 290-304. H.A. Bruck and M.T. Bruck, The Peripatetic Astronomer: the Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth. Bristol, Adam Hilger, 1988, esp. chs. 6 and 7, pp 95-134.
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