Chap. IX. PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE. 323 



the possibility of this mistake, the precaution was 

 taken of constructing chronometers (each officer 

 carrying one in his pocket), having the dial-plates 

 marked with twenty-four hours, and the hour-hand 

 making only one revolution 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. 



In visiting a part of the globe on which the foot 

 of man has never before 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 very highest scientific interest 

 which might be attained by travelling to the Pole 

 — namely, the measurement of a degree of the me- 

 ridian commencing from the Pole itself. Many 

 readers of this narrative 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 de- 

 gree this flattening exists ; and as no method of as- 

 certaining this is so conclusive as the actual measure- 

 ment of a meridian at the Pole and at the Equator, 

 this object alone would well repay any effort that 

 might be made to effect it ; but if a sufficient length 



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