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an observation so trivial in appearance, a line more or less, could lead to the knowledge of the greatest phy sical truths? It was first of all discovered that weight must necessarily be less on the equator than in our latitudes, since weight alone causes the oscillation of a pendulum. Consequently, the weight of bodies being the less the farther they are from the centre of the earth, it was inferred, that the region of the equator must be much more elevated than our own-much more remote from the centre: so the earth could not be an exact sphere.

Many philosophers acted, on the occasion of these discoveries, as all men act when an opinion is to be changed-they disputed on Richer's experiment; they pretended that our pendulums made their vibrations more slowly about the equator only because the metal was lengthened by the heat; but it was seen that the heat of the most burning summer lengthens it but one line in thirty feet; and here was an elongation of a line and a quarter, a line and a half, or even two lines, in an iron rod only three feet and eight lines long.

Some years after, MM. Varin, Deshayes, Feuillée, and Couplet, repeated near the equator the same experiment on the pendulum; and it was always found necessary to shorten it, although the heat was very often less on the line than fifteen or twenty degrees from it. This experiment was again confirmed by the academicians whom Louis XV. sent to Peru; and who were obliged, on the mountains about Quito, where it froze, to shorten the second pendulum about two lines.*

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About the same time, the academicians who went to measure an arc of the meridian in the north, found that at Pello, within the polar circle, it was necessary to lengthen the pendulum, in order to have the same oscillations as at Paris: consequently weight is greater at the polar circle than in the latitude of France, as it is greater in our latitude than at the equator. Weight being greater in the north, the north was therefore

*This was written in 1736.-T.

nearer the centre of the earth than the equator; therefore the earth as flattened at the poles.

Never did reasonin and experiment so fully concur to establish a truth. The celebrated Huygens, by calculating centrifugal forces, had proved that the consequent diminution of weight on the surface of a sphere was not great enough to explain the phenomena, and that therefore the earth must be a spheroid flattened at the poles. Newton, by the principles of attraction, had found nearly the same relations; only it must be observed, that Huygens believed this force inherent in bodies determining them towards the centre of the globe, to be everywhere the same. He had not yet seen the discoveries of Newton; so that he considered the diminution of weight by the theory of centrifugal forces only. The effect of centrifugal forces diminishes the primitive gravity on the equator. The smaller the circles in which this centrifugal force is exercised become, the more it yields to the force of gravity; thus, at the pole itself the centrifugal force, being null, must leave the primitive gravity in full action. But this principle of a gravity always equal, falls to nothing before the discovery made by Newton, that a body transported, for instance, to the distance of ten diameters from the centre of the earth, would weigh one hundred times less than at the distance of one diameter.

It is then by the laws of gravitation, combined with those of the centrifugal force, that the real form of the earth must be shown. Newton and Gregory had such confidence in this theory, that they did not hesitate to advance, that experiments on weight were a surer means of knowing the form of the earth than any geographical

measurement.

Louis XIV. had signalised his reign by that meridian, which was drawn through France: the illustrious Dominic Cassini had begun it with his son; and had, in 1701, drawn from the feet of the Pyrenees to the observatory a line as straight as it could be drawn, considering the almost insurmountable obstacles which

the height of mountains, the changes of refraction in' the air, and the altering of instruments were constantly opposing to the execution of so vast and delicate an undertaking; he had, in 1701, measured six degrees eighteen minutes of that meridian. But, from whatever cause the error might proceed, he had found the degrees towards Paris, that is, towards the north, shorter than those towards the Pyrenees and the south. This measurement gave the lie both to that of Norwood and to the new theory of the earth flattened at the poles. Yet this new theory was beginning to be so generally received, that the academy's secretary did not hesitate, in his history of 1701, to say that the new measurements made in France proved the earth to be a spheroid flattened at the poles. The truth was, that Dominic Cassini's measurement led to a conclusion directly opposite; but, as the figure of the earth had not yet become a question in France, no one at that time was at the trouble of combating this false conclusion. The degrees of the meridian from Collioure to Paris were believed to be exactly measured; and the pole, which from that measurement must necessarily be elongated, was believed to be flattened.

An engineer, named M. de Roubais, astonished at this conclusion, demonstrated that, by the measurements taken in France, the earth must be an oblate spheroid, of which the meridian passing through the poles must be longer than the equator, the poles being elongated.* But of all the natural philosophers to whom he addressed his dissertation, not one would have it printed; because it seemed that the academy had pronounced it was too bold in an individual to raise his voice. Some time after the error of 1701 was acknowledged, that which had been said was unsaid; and the earth was lengthened by a just conclusion drawn from a false principle. The meridian was continued in the same principle from Paris to Dunkirk; and the degrees were still found to grow shorter as they approached the north. People were still mistaken res

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pecting the figure of the earth, as they had been concerning the nature of light. About the same time, some mathematicians, who were performing the same operations in China, were astonished to find a difference among their degrees, which they had expected to find alike; and to discover, after many verifications, that they were shorter towards the north than towards the south. This accordance of the mathematicians of France with those of China was another powerful reason for believing in the oblate spheroid. In France they did still more; they measured parallels to the equator. It is easily understood that on an oblate spheroid our degrees of longitude must be shorter than on a sphere. M. de Cassini found the parallel which passes through St. Malo to be shorter by one thousand and thirtyseven toises than it would have been on a spherical

earth.

All these measurements proved that the degrees had been found as it was wished to find them. They overturned, for a time, in France, the demonstrations of Newton and Huygens; and it was no longer doubted that the poles were of a form precisely contrary to that which had at first been attributed to them. In short, nothing at all was known about the matter.

At length, other academicians, who had visited the polar circle in 1736, having found, by new measurements, that the degree was longer there than in France, people doubted between them and the Cassinis. But these doubts were soon after removed: for these same astronomers, returning from the pole, examined afresh the degree measured by Picard, in 1677, to the north of Paris; and found the degree to be a hundred and twenty-three toises longer than it was according to Picard's measurement. If, then, Picard, with all his precautions, had made his degree one hundred and twenty-three toises too short, it was not at all unlikely that the degrees towards the south had in like manner been found too long. Thus the first error of Picard, having furnished the foundations for the measurements of the meridian, also furnished an excuse for the almost

inevitable errors, which very good astronomers might have committed in the course of these operations.

Unfortunately, other men of science found that, at the Cape of Good Hope, the degrees of the meridian did not agree with ours. Other measurements, taken in Italy, likewise contradicted those of France, and all were falsified by those of China. People again began to doubt, and to suspect, in my opinion very reasonably, that the earth had protuberances.

As for the English, though they are fond of travelling, they spared themselves the fatigue, and held fast: their theory.

The difference between one diameter and the other is not more than five or six of our leagues-a difference immense in the eyes of a disputant, but almost imperceptible to those who consider the measurement of the globe only in reference to the purposes of utility which it may serve. A geographer could scarcely make this difference perceptible on a map; nor would a pilot be able to discover whether he was steering on a spheroid or on a sphere.

Yet there have been men bold enough to assert, that the lives of navigators depended on this question. Oh quackery! wilt thou spare no degrees-not even those of the meridian?

FIGURED-FIGURATIVE.

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WE say, a truth figured' by a fable, by a parable; the church figured' by the young spouse in Solomon's Song; ancient Rome figured' by Babylon. A figurative style is constituted by metaphorical expressions, figuring the things spoken of-and disfiguring them when the metaphors are not correct.

Ardent imagination, passion, desire-frequently deceived-produce the figurative style. We do not admit it into history, for too many metaphors are hurtful, not only to perspicuity, but also to truth, by saying more or less than the thing itself.

In didactic works, this style should be rejected. It. is much more out of place in a sermon than in a funeral

VOL. III.

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