In the 1870s and in light of modern precision, a series of international conferences was held to devise new metric standards. The Metre Convention ("Convention du Mètre") of 1875 mandated the establishment of a permanent International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM: ') to be located in Sèvres, France. This new organisation was to construct and preserve a prototype metre bar, distribute national metric prototypes, and maintain comparisons between them and non-metric measurement standards. The organisation distributed such bars in 1889 at the first General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM: '), establishing the "International Prototype Metre" as the distance between two lines on a standard bar composed of an alloy of 90% platinum and 10% iridium, measured at the melting point of ice.