300 Importance of a Visit to the North Pole. 



carrying one in his pocket) having the dial-plates marked with 

 twenty-four hours, and the hour-hand making only one re- 

 volution in that period. Thus, whenever the chronometers 

 indicated apparent noon at Greenwich, the sun would be 

 exactly over the meridian of that place, and so of any other 

 place of known longitude ; for instance, the harbour where 

 our travellers had left their ship, and to which they desired 

 to return. 



On visiting a part of the globe on which the foot of man 

 has never trodden, it is impossible to say what benefits may 

 accrue to science. But, in the enterprise to which we are 

 now alluding, there is one object of the highest scientific in- 

 terest, which might be obtained by travelling to the pole, 

 namely, the measurement of a degree of the meridian, com- 

 mencing from the pole itself. Many readers of this narra- 

 tive are aware, that the form of the globe has long since 

 been ascertained to be that of an oblate spheroid, having its 

 equatorial diameter considerably longer than the polar ; in 

 more popular language, that the earth is flattened at the 

 poles. But it still remains a matter of doubt, in what degree 

 this flattening exists ; and as no method of ascertaining this 

 is so conclusive as the actual measurement of a meridian at 

 the Pole and at the Equator, this object alone w^ould well re- 

 pay any eff'ort that might be made to effect it ; but if a suffi- 

 cient length of line could be measured in one of the meridians 

 that are clustered on the pole, the difficulty of preserving it 

 would require the most rigid attention. 



The swinging of a pendulum is, perhaps, a less accurate 

 method of obtaining the ellipticity of the earth, but it is the 

 operation of a single person, whereas the actual measure- 

 ment of the meridian line requires several ; and as an in- 

 crease of gravitation takes place from the equator to the 

 pole, the latter makes it most desirable that the requisite 

 observations should be made there, or as near to it as pos- 

 sible ; but a ship on an open or icy sea would not answer. 



The tides at the pole would be an interesting subject to 

 examine ; but it does not appear that any contrivance on an 

 open sea, or a sea of ice, could be made use of to ascertain 

 the rise and fall. 



