In 1832, Carl Friedrich Gauss studied the Earth's magnetic field and proposed adding the second to the basic units of the metre and the kilogram in the form of the CGS system (centimetre, gram, second). In 1836, he founded the "Magnetischer Verein", the first international scientific association, in collaboration with Alexander von Humboldt and Wilhelm Edouard Weber. Geophysics or the study of the Earth by the means of physics preceded physics and contributed to the development of its methods. It was primarily a natural philosophy whose object was the study of natural phenomena such as the Earth's magnetic field, lightning and gravity. The coordination of the observation of geophysical phenomena in different points of the globe was of paramount importance and was at the origin of the creation of the first international scientific associations. The foundation of the "Magnetischer Verein" would be followed by that of the Central European Arc Measurement (German: "Mitteleuropaïsche Gradmessung") on the initiative of Johann Jacob Baeyer in 1863, and by that of the International Meteorological Organisation whose second president, the Swiss meteorologist and physicist, Heinrich von Wild would represent Russia at the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM).