248 »R. Gregory's strictures on don Rodriguez. 



not, I hope, be deemed uncandid, if I say, that to me this 

 The Don's object appears to be no other than the depression of English 

 apparent ob- ( an( j p erna ps other) ingenuity and exertion, in order to the undue 

 the French exaltation of the French scientific character. To this end, as 

 scientific cha- it would seem, (for to what other purpose can it be ?) we are 

 told, that in consequence of " the general impulse which the 

 human mind received" from the French revolution, the mem- 

 at the expence ^ ers °^ m °i r Academy of Sciences "invented new instru- 

 ct' all others, ments, new methods, new formulae," for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining the figure of the earth, &c. and commenced "an im- 

 portant undertaking, almost the whole of which consisted of 

 something new in science." I have no wish to depreciate the 

 value of the discoveries and improvements of the French ma- 

 thematicians} yet surely I may affirm, that much had been 

 done with respect to the grand topic in question, long before 

 the French revolution. Did not Euler invent " new methods 

 and new formulae" for this express purpose, and publish them so 

 long back as the year 1/53, in the Berlin Memoirs ? Did not Di- 

 NicV S Journ mis ^ u ^ c J 0Ur mucn improve this branch of analytical theory > 

 New Series, Did not Professor Playfair solve the general problem in all 



Nos 'i^V?t\ lts useful varieties in the Edinburgh Transactions, before the 

 or vol. VII) J ° ' 



publication ot Deiambre's investigations I Did not General 



Roy, and the subsequent English measurers, publish ingenious 

 formulae in the Philosophical Transactions, although Don Ro- 

 EnglishTrig. driguez insinuates, that their methods are kept back? And, 

 Survey com- w j tn reS p SCt to riC t ua i admeasurements, might not the Don 

 the French have learnt from the Philosophical Transactions (see vols. 75, 

 revol. jj f 80 ^ £c.) t i )at government surveys were commenced in 



Scotland so long back as J 745, by Lieutenant-General Watson 5 

 that in 1775 the work was continued 3 that in 1783 an autho- 

 rized committee or deputation of the mathematical philosophers 

 of England and France met at Dover to concert the best means 

 of carrying a series of triangles from Greenwich to Paris ; that 

 the work was soon after pursued by the appointed persons in 

 both countries j and that, from that period it has almost regu- 

 larly proceeded in England, whatever interruptions it may have 

 experienced in France ? How, then, can a writer insert in 

 the Philosophical Transactions, where evidence to the con- 

 trary abounds, a paper from which all who are unacquainted 

 with the history of this important class of operations, would 



conclude 



