[literalAardvark]

You jest, but times around the Earth is the actual origin of the Meter. Kinda.

The history is quite interesting and well worth checking out.

I can't recommend a book on the subject, but I do heartily recommend "Longitude", which is about the challenges of inventing the first maritime chronometers for the purpose of accurately measuring longitude.

[EA]

The original meter (1790s France) was defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a meridian.

[literalAardvark]

Not sure if you're correcting me, but yes, that is "a" path around the Earth.

It's not the most aesthetic one, but it was at the time the most able to be measured.