Chap. V. COVERING AND SABINE. 141 



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the correspondence being accidental." They are, 

 in fact, the combinations of Captain Sabine's 13 

 stations ; of the French savans' 8 stations ; of the 

 British survey, 7 stations : making in all 28 sta- 

 tions. 



This result, however, of the ellipticity " differs," 

 says Sabine, " more considerably than could have 

 been expected from ^j b , which had been previously 

 received on the authority of the most eminent 

 geometrician of the age, as the concurrent indica- 

 tion of the measurements of terrestrial degrees, of 

 pendulum experiments, and of the lunar inequalities 

 dependent on the oblateness of the earth." 



The success that has attended the experiment of 

 investigating the figure of the earth by means of the 

 pendulum, encourages, as Captain Sabine thinks, the 

 belief that an equally satisfactory conclusion, and 

 one highly interesting in the comparison, might be 

 obtained by the measurement of terrestrial degrees ; 

 that is to say, by an actual measurement of a degree 

 of the meridian. This has in fact been done in 

 various parts of the world, but centuries ago, when 

 the instruments were inferior, and the mode of their 

 most advantageous employment less understood 

 than at present. In India an arc has recently been 

 measured, and one of an old date at the Cape 

 of Good Hope re-measured ; but Captain Sabine 

 points out Spitzbergen, being near to the Polar 

 extremity of the meridian, " as the land of most 



