XIY ADVERTISEMENT. 



which engage us to rejed folitary truths that lead 

 to none. They have been feduced by the reputa- 

 tion of Newton, which has been objefted to my- 

 felf, and Newton had himfelf been feduced, as 

 ufually happens, by his own fyftem. That fu- 

 blime Geometrician proceeded on the fuppofition, 

 that the centrifugal force, which he applied to the 

 motion of the Stars, had flattened the Poles of the 

 Earth, by acting upon it's Equator, Norwood, a 

 Mathematician of England, having found, by 

 meafuring the Meridian from London to York, 

 the terreftrial degree to be eight fathom greater 

 than that which Cajfini had meafured in France, 

 ** Newton^^ fays Voltaire, afcribed this fmall ex- 

 *' cefs of eight fathom, in a degree, to the figure of 

 *' the Earth, which he believed to be that of a 

 *^ fpheroïd flattened toward the Poles ; and he 

 " concluded, that Norwood, having taken his Me- 

 *' ridian in a region to the northward of our*s, 

 ** muft have found his degree to be greater than 

 *' that of CaJfini, as he fuppofed the curve of the 

 *' Earth meafured by Norzvood to be the longer of 

 " the two." * It is evident that, the degree being 

 greater, and the curve longer, toward the North, 

 Newton ought to have concluded that the Earth 

 was lengthened out at the Poles ; but he deduced 

 the diredly oppofite conclufion, namely, that it 



* Newton's Philofophy, chap, xviii, 



was 



