GEOGRAPHY. 351 



Under the direction of a Grovernment commission comi30sed of MM'. 

 Milne-Edwards, Valllant, Perrier, Marion, de Falin, and Fischer, the 

 French gunboat " le Travailleurj" commanded by Lieutenant Richard, 

 has carried out an extensive programme of sounding and dredging in 

 the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of Portugal, and in the eastern part of 

 the Mediterranean Sea. The greatest depths found were 2,789 fathoms 

 in the Atlantic, and 1,454 fathoms in the Mediterranean. 



The Spanish Government has undertaken a new survey of the Med- 

 iterranean shores of the Spanish kingdom, and are also energetically 

 pushing a survey of the entire Philippine group. 



FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 



In Appendix No. 8 to the United States Coast Survey Eeport for 1879, 

 Mr. 0. A. Schott discusses the deflection of the plumb line along the 

 oblique arc from Calais, Me., to Atlanta, Ga., and demonstrates the su- 

 perior accuracy of Clarke's elements of the spheroid figure of the earth 

 over those determined by Bessel. So evident is this superiority that 

 the substitution of Clarke's spheroid for Bessel's as the surface of de- 

 velopment for all Coast Survey maps of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts 

 is recommended, it having already been adopted for the charts of the 

 Pacific coast. When this arc, already 1,200 miles long, is extended 4^° 

 farther to Mobile Point, the Atlantic and Gulf coast systems of triangu- 

 lation will be united, and the value of the arc for geodetic purposes will 

 be increased 25 per cent. 



The European Association for the Measurement of Degrees, formed 

 by geodesists of various nations in 1 861 under the auspices of Lieuten- 

 ant-General von Baeyer, and having for its objects the measurement of 

 arcs of meridian and parallel, are making arrangements for the comple- 

 tion of an arc measurement extending from Palermo to Levanger in 

 Norway. 



Work is now in progress to connect the general system of Swedish 

 triangulation from a point on the frontier south of Christiania with 

 Levanger as well as another point in Sweden farther north. This meas- 

 urement will give an arc covering 25^° of latitude, and its discussion 

 will afford a valuable addition to geodetic knowledge. 



Eenewed interest has been manifested within the last few years in 

 the observations of pendulum vibrations as bearing on the figure and 

 density of the earth, and pendulum work which had been suspended for 

 many years has been resumed by the Government surveys in Europe, 

 America, and India. The pendulum so well nsed by Major Herschel, 

 R. E., in the work of the great trigonometrical survey of India, has been 

 carried by Mr. Edwin Smith of the United States Coast Survey, to 

 he stations in New Zealand where he observed the transit of Venus 

 in December last, and he will observe its vibrations there, and afterward 

 at Batavia, Hong-Kong, Tokio, Point Barrow, and San Francisco. 



