Description

VOLUME DEMONSTRATION BY THE “SYSTEME METRIQUE” OF J. LEVEL OF STRASBOURG, French, c. 1885, signed on a brass plaque “Système Métrique, Methode LEVEL, Breveté, S.G.D.G.” The system comprises linear, square, and cubical containers of plated sheet steel, plus a square wire grid, plus the original instruction manual. The containers are life size; thus the linear one is constructed with ten compartments each one centimeter on a side, and thus each with a volume of one cubic centimeter. The square pan has a square insert with 100 such compartments, and thus with a total volume of 100 cc. The large container measures 10 x 10 x 10 cm, and thus has a volume of 1000 cc or one liter; one side is glazed and mounted with an edge rule in brass graduated every mm from 0 to 10 cm, and one side is mounted with a tiny spigot drain. Finally the wire frame has a grid of 9×9 moveable wires permitting, among others, a uniform 10×10 cm grid. The 36 page manual was published in Paris in 1881. Condition is good, with general spotting to the plating. Apparently lacking is a tiny 1 cc cube, and the back cover of the manual.

This unusual didactic system is used to demonstrate the volumetric properties of the metric system, as well as the volume measure of irregular bodies by noting the amount of water displaced when they are immersed in the large container filled with water.

Booklets describing his method were produced by Jacques Level throughout the third quarter 19th c.