208 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



* 



This important consideration was brought under 

 the notice of the President and Council of the 

 Royal Society in 1825 by Sir J. Herschel, in 

 consequence of a paper written by Colonel Sa- 

 bine,* who, having conducted a valuable series 

 of pendulum observations at Spitzbergen, for 

 the purpose of determining the figure of the 

 earth, felt the very high interest and importance 

 that would attach to a direct comparison of these 

 results with a compression determined by the 

 actual measurement of an arc of the meridian, 

 or rather by extending the measurement of arcs 

 to higher latitudes than has been hitherto at- 

 tempted. His proposition met with the warm 

 support of Mr. Davies Gilbert, the late Sir 

 Humphrey Davy, then President of the Royal 

 Society, Sir J. Herschel, and others, and was 

 so far entertained by the Council of the Royal 

 Society, that in the autumn of the same year 

 the propriety of recommending the subject to 

 the Government was taken into consideration. 



So deeply were Colonel Sabine's feelings 

 engaged in this most important inquiry, that he 

 sought from remote foreign sources the most 

 useful information with regard to the localities 

 of Spitzbergen ; and on the question being put 

 to him by the President of the Society, he 



* See Appendix. 



