Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler
BornOctober 6, 1770
Aarau, Switzerland
DiedNovember 20, 1843 (1843-11-21) (aged 73)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Resting placeLaurel Hill Cemetery
Scientific career
FieldsSurveyor
InstitutionsUnited States Military Academy
United States Coast Survey
United States Treasury Department
Signature

Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler (October 6, 1770 – November 20, 1843) was a Swiss-American surveyor who is considered the forefather of both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for his achievements as the first Superintendent of the U.S. Survey of the Coast and the first U.S. Superintendent of Weights and Measures.

Early life and education

Hassler was born on October 6, 1770[1] in Aarau, Switzerland.[2] He was the son of Magdalena Ernst and Hans Jakob Hassler, a prosperous watchmaker and local official. He attended the Latin school and an advanced private school, then in 1786 the institute that later became the University of Bern.[3][4] At first he studied law, but became a student of Johann Georg Tralles and changed his academic focus to astronomy, mathematics and physics. From 1791 to 1797 he continued his studies in France and Germany.[4] In the summer of 1793, he studied under scientists Jean-Charles de Borda, Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, Jérôme Lalande and Antoine Lavoisier in Paris.[5] He was employed on the trigonometrical survey of Switzerland before he emigrated to the United States in 1805.[6]

Career

He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society on 17 April 1807.[7] Through the influence of Albert Gallatin, he was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson as professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy from 1807 to 1810.[8] Hassler was unpopular as a teacher and was dismissed on 31 December 1809, when John Calhoun, then Secretary of War, realized that Congress had not authorized the hiring of civilians to staff the academy.[9][10][11][12] Hassler obtained another mathematics professorship at Union College at Schenectady from 1810 to 1811.[8]

U.S. coastal survey

In 1811, he was employed by the federal government of the United States to begin a hydrographic survey of the U.S. coast.[13] An Act of Congress on February 10, 1807, appropriated $50,000 for the beginning of the work.[4] In 1812, Hassler was appointed the superintendent of the Survey of the Coast by the United States Congress. He was sent to France and England to collect supplies for the project.[9] Hassler bought instruments of the most reputed French and British makers. After the War of 1812 broke out between the United States and the United Kingdom in 1812, his instruments were confiscated as spoils of war and Hassler was detained in England until 1815 as the British thought him an enemy spy.[9][14][15]

After Hassler's return to the United States, President James Madison appointed him the first superintendent of the Survey of the Coast in 1816.[15] The creative side of Hassler was seen in the design of new surveying instruments. Most original was Hassler's baseline apparatus which involved an idea worked out by him in Switzerland and perfected in America. Instead of bringing different bars in actual contact during the process of baseline measurements, he used four two-metre (6 ft 7 in) iron bars fastened together totaling eight metres (26 ft) in length and optical contact. As early as February–March 1817, Hassler standardized the bars of his device which were actually calibrated on the Committee Metre (an authentic copy of the Mètre des Archives) which was the property of the American Philosophical Society, to whom it had been presented by Hassler himself, who had received it from Tralles, a foreign member of the French Committee charged with the construction of the standard metre by comparison with the Toise of Peru, which had served as unit of length in the measurement of the meridional arcs in France and Peru. The Committee Metre possessed all the authenticity of any original metre extant, bearing not only the stamp of the committee, but also the original mark by which it was distinguished from the other bars during the operation of standardising. Thus the metre became the unit of length for geodesy in the United States. Indeed, the Committee Metre served as the standard of length for Coast and Geodetic Survey until 1890, when the National Prototype Metre Bar No. 27 allotted to the United States in 1889 at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures arrived in Washington, D.C.[16][10][17][18][19][4][20] However, Hassler had exceeded the spending limitations that had been set for his trip to Europe, and the resulting controversy foreshadowed the frictions between Hassler and the American Government that would plague his career. In 1818, the United States Congress removed supervision of the Survey of the Coast from Hassler and gave control to the United States Army, where it lingered until 1832.[15]

On July 10, 1832, Congress reestablished the Survey of the Coast on the basis of the original act of 1807. Upon President Jackson's recommendation, Hassler again became its Superintendent.[4] The Survey was renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836, and in 1878 it became the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Superintendent of weights and measures

Hassler also was able to continue his superintendence over the work in Weights and Measures.[4] He became the head of the Office of Standard Weights and Measures (this office was a progenitor of the United States Bureau of Standards created by an Act of Congress on March 3, 1901) in the Treasury Department as an office within the Survey of the Coast which was reorganized in 1832,[21] where he carried out the early work of establishing the standards of weights and measures in the United States, with the involvement of fellow Swiss immigrant Albert Gallatin, then ambassador of the United States at London, who in 1827 had brought from Europe a troy pound of brass, made at his request by Henry Kater, from which the standard of mass was derived. This troy pound called troy pound of the United States' Mint at Philadelphia or Pound Troy, 1824 was used as the standard for the coining of money until the twentiest century. The avoirdupoids pound adopted by Hassler had 7000 grains, the Pound Troy,1824 having 5760 grains.[22][21][23]

In the autumn of 1829, Hassler was appointed as gauger in the New York Custom House. For some time Congress had been discussing the establishment of standard of weights and measure for the United States. Up to this time the various customhouses had worked independently of each other. They used separate weights and measures from wherever they could be obtained - most of them came from England - and in some cases the customhouses depended upon the ordinary standards of local officials. On 29 May 1829, the Senate decided a comparison of weights and measures used at customhouses. Five month later, President Andrew Jackson appointed Hassler United States gauger. With the approval of Secretary of the Treasury Samuel D. Ingham and President Jackson he determined to adopt standards for the United States and produce and distribute them to the customhouses.[4][12][21] On 3 March 1831, Samuel D. Ingham reported to the President of the Senate Hassler's inspection far advanced and mentioned the Troughton scale as one of the authentic units adopted for the comparison. The Troughton scale was held to be identical with Bird's Standard Yard of 1760, which had been tested and deemed identical with the British Parliamentary Standard of 1758, which was destroyed in 1834. The fundamentals units of length, mass and capacity recommended by Hassler were adopted by the Treasury Department in 1832.[4][19] Another meaningful national standard to be adopted in 1832 was the gallon at 231 cubic inches. Appraised by Treasury reports of Hassler's progress, Congress in a joint resolution of June 14, 1836, gave its formal approval and directed the Treasury to fabricate for the customhouses the standards of weights and measures established by Hassler. By reason of the joint resolution of 1836, the Office of Weights and Measures in the Coast Survey is considered formally established as of that date.

He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1838.[24]

Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler memorial in Laurel Hill Cemetery

He died on November 20, 1843,[1] and was interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.[25]

Legacy

The iron-hulled steamship Hassler, built in 1870, was named in his honor.[26]

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration survey ship NOAAS Ferdinand R. Hassler (S 250) was also named for Hassler.[27]

Hassler's granddaughter, Mary Caroline Hassler Newcomb, married the noted astronomer and mathematician Simon Newcomb.[28] Simon and Mary Caroline Hassler Newcomb were themselves the grandparents of the also much noted professor of mathematics, Hassler Whitney.[29]

Bibliography

Besides several textbooks of science, Hassler produced a publication in 1828 titled A Popular Exposition of the System of the Universe.[30][31] After his dismissal of the United States Survey of the Coast, Hassler proved his worth as a theorist, publishing two influential books Elements of Analytical Trigonometry and Elements of Arithmetic Theoretical and Practical.[12][11][32][33] He also wrote a defense of his work on the coast survey and published it in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society in 1825.[11][16][34]

Other publications:

See also

Further reading

  • Cajori, Florian (1980). The chequered career of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler. New York: Arno Press. p. 245 p. ISBN 978-0-405-12535-5.

References

  1. 1 2 US National Archives. "Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph, 1770-1843 Person Authority Record". catalog.archives.gov. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  2. ↑ US Department of Commerce, NOAA. "Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler | NGS Facts | NGS INFO - About Us | National Geodetic Survey". geodesy.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2021-11-11. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  3. ↑ "e-expo: Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler, Chronicle". www.f-r-hassler.ch. Retrieved 2021-11-11. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Cochrane, Rexmond C. (1966). Measures for Progress: a History of the National Bureau of Standards. U.S. Department of Commerce. pp. 516, 518, 522–523, 532–533. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  5. 1 2 "Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler" (PDF). www.westpoint.edu. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
  6. ↑ US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler: Founder of the United States Coast Survey". celebrating200years.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2021-11-11. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  7. ↑ "APS Member History". www.search.amphilsoc.org. American Philosophical Society. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  8. 1 2 "Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. Vol. III. 1900. pp. 111–112.
  9. 1 2 3 "Biography of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler". www2.vcdh.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
  10. 1 2 Cajori, Florian (1921). "Swiss Geodesy and the United States Coast Survey". The Scientific Monthly. 13 (2): 117–129. Bibcode:1921SciMo..13..117C. ISSN 0096-3771.
  11. 1 2 3 "Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler" (PDF). westpoint.edu. 19 October 2003.
  12. 1 2 3 "Deciphering Lewis's Data | Discovering Lewis & Clark ®". www.lewis-clark.org. 16 June 2021. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  13. ↑ Philbrick, Nathaniel (2003) Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery: the U.S. Exploring Expedition Viking Penguin ISBN 9780142004838 pg 22-23, 26-29
  14. ↑ "e-expo: Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler, Interlude". www.f-r-hassler.ch. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
  15. 1 2 3 Greenhouse, Lisa A. (1998). Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, 1770-1843: Measuring the Young Republic. Gaithersburg, Maryland: U.S. Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology. pp. 2–6. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  16. 1 2 American Philosophical Society.; Society, American Philosophical; Poupard, James (1825). Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 2. Philadelphia [etc.] pp. 234–278.
  17. ↑ Bigourdan, Guillaume (1901). Le système métrique des poids et mesures ; son établissement et sa propagation graduelle, avec l'histoire des opérations qui ont servi à déterminer le mètre et le kilogramme. University of Ottawa. Paris : Gauthier-Villars. pp. 146, 158–159.
  18. ↑ Clarke, Alexander Ross (1873), "XIII. Results of the comparisons of the standards of length of England, Austria, Spain, United States, Cape of Good Hope, and of a second Russian standard, made at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton. With a preface and notes on the Greek and Egyptian measures of length by Sir Henry James", Philosophical Transactions, London, vol. 163, p. 463, doi:10.1098/rstl.1873.0014
  19. 1 2 Lenzen, Victor F. (1965). "The Contributions of Charles S. Peirce to Metrology". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 109 (1): 31. ISSN 0003-049X. JSTOR 985776.
  20. ↑ "CGPM : Compte rendus de la 1ère réunion (1889)". bipm.org. p. 40. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  21. 1 2 3 Hassler, Harriet; Burroughs, Charles A. (2007). Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler (1770-1843). NIST Research Library. pp. 1, 3, 10, 16, 7–8. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  22. ↑ Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph (1832). Comparison of Weights and Measures of Length and Capacity. D. Green. pp. xviii.
  23. ↑ "e-expo: Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler, Weights and measures". www.f-r-hassler.ch. Retrieved 2021-11-10.
  24. ↑ American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
  25. ↑ Parr, Albert C. (2006). "A Tale About the First Weights and Measures Intercomparison in the United States in 1832". Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. National Library of Medicine. 111 (1): 31–40. doi:10.6028/jres.111.003. PMC 4654608. PMID 27274915.
  26. ↑ "2007 Hassler Expedition - An Innovative Ship". www.sactuaries.noaa.gov. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  27. ↑ "About Ferdinand R. Hassler". www.omao.noaa.gov. Office of Marine & Aviation Operations (OMAO). Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  28. ↑ Campbell, W.W. (1924). Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences Volume XVII. Washington: Government Printing Office. p. 18. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  29. ↑ Chern, Shing-Shen (September 1994). "Hassler Whitney (23 March 1907-10 May 1989)". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 138 (3): 465–467. JSTOR 986754. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  30. ↑ Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph (1828). A popular exposition of the system of the universe. G. & C. Carvill.
  31. ↑ Sarton, George (1929-09-01). "The Chequered Career of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, First Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Florian Cajori". Isis. 13 (1): 121. doi:10.1086/346442. ISSN 0021-1753.
  32. ↑ Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph (1829). Elements of Arithmetic, Theoretical and Practical: Adapted to the Use of Schools, and to Private Study. G. & C. & H. Carvill.
  33. ↑ Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph (1826). Elements of Analytic Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical. The author. ISBN 978-0-608-37752-0.
  34. ↑ Hassler, Ferdinand Rudolph (1825). Papers on Various Subjects Connected with the Survey of the Coast of the United States.
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