Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society on April 17th, 1807. He had carried to America a large collection of scientific books and numerous scientific instruments and standards, among them a standard metre, made at Paris in 1799. A long course of special training secured in Switzerland, France and Germany had made him the foremost practical geodesist living in the United States in the beginning of the 19th century. In 1816, he was appointed first Superintendent of the Survey of the Coast. 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 iron bars fastened together totaling eight meters in length and optical contact. As early as February-March 1817, Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, standardized the bars of his device which were actually calibrated on the metre. The latter became the unit of length for geodesy in the United States.