comparing his standard with that of the French, so that his result was expressed in toises (the length of the toise is about 6·39 English ft.). The work was recomputed and reobserved by P. von Musschenbroek in 1729. In 1637 an Englishman, Richard Norwood, published a determination of the figure of the earth in a volume entitled The Seaman’s Practice, contayning a Fundamentall Probleme in Navigation experimentally verified, namely, touching the Compasse of the Earth and Sea and the quantity of a Degree in our English Measures. He observed on the 11th of June 1633 the sun’s meridian altitude in London as 62° 1′, and on the 6th of June 1635, his meridian altitude in York as 59° 33′. He measured the distance between these places partly with a chain and partly by pacing. By this means, through compensation of errors, he arrived at 367,176 ft. for the degree—a very fair result.
The application of the telescope to angular instruments was the next important step. Jean Picard was the first who in 1669, with the telescope, using such precautions as the nature of the operation requires, measured an arc of meridian. He measured with wooden rods a base line of 5663 toises, and a second or base of verification of 3902 toises; his triangulation extended from Malvoisine, near Paris, to Sourdon, near Amiens. The angles of the triangles were measured with a quadrant furnished with a telescope having cross-wires. The difference of latitude of the terminal stations was determined by observations made with a sector on a star in Cassiopeia, giving 1° 22′ 55″ for the amplitude. The terrestrial measurement gave 78,850 toises, whence he inferred for the length of the degree 57,060 toises.
Hitherto geodetic observations had been confined to the determination of the magnitude of the earth considered as a sphere, but a discovery made by Jean Richer (d. 1696) turned the attention of mathematicians to its deviation from a spherical form. This astronomer, having been sent by the Academy of Sciences of Paris to the island of Cayenne, in South America, for the purpose of investigating the amount of astronomical refraction and other astronomical objects, observed that his clock, which had been regulated at Paris to beat seconds, lost about two minutes and a half daily at Cayenne, and that in order to bring it to measure mean solar time it was necessary to shorten the pendulum by more than a line (about 112th of an in.). This fact, which was scarcely credited till it had been confirmed by the subsequent observations of Varin and Deshayes on the coasts of Africa and America, was first explained in the third book of Newton’s Principia, who showed that it could only be referred to a diminution of gravity arising either from a protuberance of the equatorial parts of the earth and consequent increase of the distance from the centre, or from the counteracting effect of the centrifugal force. About the same time (1673) appeared Christian Huygens’ De Horologio Oscillatorio, in which for the first time were found correct notions on the subject of centrifugal force. It does not, however, appear that they were applied to the theoretical investigation of the figure of the earth before the publication of Newton’s Principia. In 1690 Huygens published his De Causa Gravitatis, which contains an investigation of the figure of the earth on the supposition that the attraction of every particle is towards the centre.
Between 1684 and 1718 J. and D. Cassini, starting from Picard’s base, carried a triangulation northwards from Paris to Dunkirk and southwards from Paris to Collioure. They measured a base of 7246 toises near Perpignan, and a somewhat shorter base near Dunkirk; and from the northern portion of the arc, which had an amplitude of 2° 12′ 9″, obtained for the length of a degree 56,960 toises; while from the southern portion, of which the amplitude was 6° 18′ 57″, they obtained 57,097 toises. The immediate inference from this was that, the degree diminishing with increasing latitude, the earth must be a prolate spheroid. This conclusion was totally opposed to the theoretical investigations of Newton and Huygens, and accordingly the Academy of Sciences of Paris determined to apply a decisive test by the measurement of arcs at a great distance from each other—one in the neighbourhood of the equator, the other in a high latitude. Thus arose the celebrated expeditions of the French academicians. In May 1735 Louis Godin, Pierre Bouguer and Charles Marie de la Condamine, under the auspices of Louis XV., proceeded to Peru, where, assisted by two Spanish officers, after ten years of laborious exertion, they measured an arc of 3° 7′, the northern end near the equator. The second party consisted of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Alexis Claude Clairault, Charles Étienne Louis Camus, Pierre Charles Lemonnier, and Reginaud Outhier, who reached the Gulf of Bothnia in July 1736; they were in some respects more fortunate than the first party, inasmuch as they completed the measurement of an arc near the polar circle of 57′ amplitude and returned within sixteen months from the date of their departure.
The measurement of Bouguer and De la Condamine was executed with great care, and on account of the locality, as well as the manner in which all the details were conducted, it has always been regarded as a most valuable determination. The southern limit was at Tarqui, the northern at Cotchesqui. A base of 6272 toises was measured in the vicinity of Quito, near the northern extremity of the arc, and a second base of 5260 toises near the southern extremity. The mountainous nature of the country made the work very laborious, in some cases the difference of heights of two neighbouring stations exceeding 1 mile; and they had much trouble with their instruments, those with which they were to determine the latitudes proving untrustworthy. But they succeeded by simultaneous observations of the same star at the two extremities of the arc in obtaining very fair results. The whole length of the arc amounted to 176,945 toises, while the difference of latitudes was 3° 7′ 3″. In consequence of a misunderstanding that arose between De la Condamine and Bouguer, their operations were conducted separately, and each wrote a full account of the expedition. Bouguer’s book was published in 1749; that of De la Condamine in 1751. The toise used in this measure was afterwards regarded as the standard toise, and is always referred to as the Toise of Peru.
The party of Maupertuis, though their work was quickly despatched, had also to contend with great difficulties. Not being able to make use of the small islands in the Gulf of Bothnia for the trigonometrical stations, they were forced to penetrate into the forests of Lapland, commencing operations at Torneå, a city situated on the mainland near the extremity of the gulf. From this, the southern extremity of their arc, they carried a chain of triangles northward to the mountain Kittis, which they selected as the northern terminus. The latitudes were determined by observations with a sector (made by George Graham) of the zenith distance of α and δ Draconis. The base line was measured on the frozen surface of the river Torneå about the middle of the arc; two parties measured it separately, and they differed by about 4 in. The result of the whole was that the difference of latitudes of the terminal stations was 57′ 29″ ·6, and the length of the arc 55,023 toises. In this expedition, as well as in that to Peru, observations were made with a pendulum to determine the force of gravity; and these observations coincided with the geodetic results in proving that the earth was an oblate and not prolate spheroid.
In 1740 was published in the Paris Mémoires an account, by Cassini de Thury, of a remeasurement by himself and Nicolas Louis de Lacaille of the meridian of Paris. With a view to determine more accurately the variation of the degree along the meridian, they divided the distance from Dunkirk to Collioure into four partial arcs of about two degrees each, by observing the latitude at five stations. The results previously obtained by J. and D. Cassini were not confirmed, but, on the contrary, the length of the degree derived from these partial arcs showed on the whole an increase with an increasing latitude. Cassini and Lacaille also measured an arc of parallel across the mouth of the Rhone. The difference of time of the extremities was determined by the observers at either end noting the instant of a signal given by flashing gunpowder at a point near the middle of the arc.
While at the Cape of Good Hope in 1752, engaged in various astronomical observations, Lacaille measured an arc of meridian of 1° 13′ 17″, which gave him for the length of the degree 57,037
