152 Captain Sabine on the 



to attempt an equally conclusive result, by the comparison of ter- 

 restrial measurements undertaken on the same decisive scale, of 

 which, his experiments with the pendulum afford the example. 

 He has suggested a proceeding towards the attainment of such a 

 result which we cannot do better than lay before our readers, 

 adding our persuasion that it is well entitled to the serious con- 

 sideration of every man of science, who, either in his public 

 Or private capacity, may have it in his power to promote its 

 execution. 



" The success which has thus attended the attempt to carry into 

 effect, under the conditions most favourable for the experiment, 

 the method of investigating the figure of the earth by means of 

 the pendulum, and the consistent and precise result, far exceed- 

 ing previous expectation, which, under such circumstances, it has 

 been found to aiford, encourage the belief that an equally satis- 

 factory conclusion, and one highly interesting in the comparison, 

 might be obtained by the measurement of terrestrial degrees, 

 performed also under the requisite conditions to give its due effi- 

 ciency to the method of experiment. Experience has fully shewn, 

 that no result of decisive character is to be expected from the re- 

 petition or comparison of measurements in the middle latitudes ; 

 and that it is only from operations carried on in portions of the 

 meridian widely separated from each other, that such an event 

 can be regarded as of probable accomplishment. The project of 

 the original experimentors, — of those eminent men, who nearly a 

 century ago, devised and executed corresponding measurements 

 at the equator and at the arctic circle, — was of far more vigorous 

 conception, than the steps of their successors have ventured to 

 follow, even to the present period ; and it is due to their memory 

 to recognise that the failure on that occasion was not from insuf- 

 ficient extension of view, or from deficiency in the spirit of en- 

 terprise ; but from the attempt having been made in the infancy 

 of practical science, when the instruments were inferior, and the 

 modes of their most advantageous employment less understood, 

 than they have since been rendered. 



" The discordancies, which appear in the comparison of the mea- 

 surements hitherto accomplished, are not so great as those which 

 had resulted from the comparison of pendulum experiments, pre- 

 viously to the present attempt to give the latter method its full 

 and efficient trial : it has been also seen that in proportion as the 

 arcs have been enlarged, so as to include the continuous measure- 

 ment of more extended portions of the meridian, and as the pro- 

 cesses of operation have been conducted with improved means, 

 and increased attention to accuracy, the anomalies have progres- 

 sively diminished ; the prospect therefore, that they may be made 



