The Helvetic Republic adopted the metric system in 1803. In 1805, a Swiss immigrant Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler brought copies of the French metre and kilogram in the United States. In 1830 the Congress decided to create uniform standards for length and weight in the United States. Hassler was mandated to work out the new standards and proposed to adopt the metric system. The United States Congress opted for the British Parliamentary Standard Yard of 1758 and the British Troy Pound of 1824 as length and weight standards. Nevertheless, the primary baseline of the U.S Coast Survey was measured in 1834 at Fire Island using four two-metre iron bars constructed after Hassler's specification in Great Britain and brought back in the United States in 1815. All distances measured in the U.S. National Geodetic Survey were referred to the metre.