1826.] Philosophical Transactions for \^2Qj Parts Land II. 53 



To these observations Mr. South has appended a synoptical 

 view of the results afforded by them, and by those detailed in 

 the former communication ; which itself occupies eighteen large 

 and closely-printed quarto pages. We now proceed to the 

 papers contained in the second part of the Phil. Trans, for 1826. 



I, An Account of the Construction and Adjustment of the new 

 Standards of Weights and Measures of the United Kingdom of 

 Great Britain and Ireland, By Capt. Henry Kater, FRS. 



The labours in this interesting application of the refinements 

 of modern science to the arts and purposes of civil life, in which 

 some of the most distinguished natural philosophers of the pre- 

 sent day have, for about ten years past, been engaged, terminate, 

 we presume, with the verifications recorded in this paper. When 

 we reflect on the unremitting diligence with which those labours 

 have been prosecuted, — on the manner in which so many distinct 

 branches of mathematical and physical research have been con- 

 centrated, as it were, and directed towards the objects to be 

 attained,— and on the final results, as well philosophical as prac- 

 tical, of the whole inquiry, we think we may with justice congra- 

 tulate our readers, and the country at large, on the satisfactory 

 establishment of the long-desired uniform system of weights and 

 measures. And we are far from considering, as appears to have 

 been done by some writers on the subject, that the objections 

 lately urged, with so much accuracy of reasoning, by Capt. 

 Sabine, against the means at present appointed for ascertaining 

 and recovering the standard of linear measure, tend essentially 

 to invahdate the new system. They seem to us, on the contrary, 

 to contribute powerfully to its support ; by showing the pendu- 

 lum to afford the most appropriate natural standard for the 

 purpose, requiring, however, corrections and modifications 

 hitherto unemployed. Nor should it be forgotten, as an 

 evidence of the soundness of the principles on which the 

 system has been founded, that the experiments which indicate 

 the expediency of these corrections, constitute, in fact, a por- 

 tion of the train of researches to which the means pursued for 

 " ascertaining and establishing uniformity of weights and 

 measures," have given rise. They were undertaken by Capt.. 

 Sabine, in consequence of the discrepancies, with regard to the 

 figure of the earth, of the results obtained, by combining the 

 lengths of the pendulum observed by Capt. Kater at the different 

 stations of the trigonometrical survey of Great Britain, with 

 those observed in France. We would suggest, then, that the 

 proper view to be taken of the subject is the following: That a 

 high degree of precision in the means of determining the natural 

 standard, and one in all respects worthy of the existing state of 

 science, has already been attained ; but that a portion of the 

 investigation for the ascertainment of those means, has shown a 

 further refinement of them to be desirable. And it niay be 



