The metric system was first used in France in 1795. It had units for length, area, dry volume, liquid capacity, weight or mass, and even amounts of money, but not for time. Decimal time of day had been first used in France two years earlier, but was set aside at the same time the metric system was started, and did not follow the metric pattern of a base unit and prefixed units. James Clerk Maxwell and Elihu Thomson (through the British Association for the Advancement of Science - BAAS) came up with the Centimetre gram second system of units (cgs) in 1874.