some Points on the West Coast of Scotland. 301 



at his disposal (had he used them as he ought to have done) he 

 might have effected. 



Having shewn, last year, that some of those reckoned our 

 best maps, such as Arrowsmith's, Wyld's, &c., contained very 

 considerable errors in the Firth of Clyde, especially about the 

 Island of Arran, I was in hopes that, in calling attention to the 

 subject through this Society, by definite and palpable instances, 

 the claims of Scotland could not well be overlooked by the 

 Legislature, especially if followed up by persons of influence 

 connected with the northern part of the island. In this I have 

 not been disappointed. A few months after my remarks were 

 read in the Wernerian Society, and published in Professor 

 Jameson"'s Journal, the Wernerian Society memorialised Govern- 

 ment, and also recommended the subject to the consideration of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Highland Society, and 

 the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and they also petitioned Go- 

 vernment to order the resumption of the Trigonometrical Sur- 

 vey of Scotland. 



I have now the satisfaction of informing this Society, on the 

 best authority, received some months ago, as may have already 

 been learned by other means, that the Triangulation of the 

 West Coast of Scotland, under the able superintendence of 

 Colonel Colby, will be resumed next summer. 



In addition to this, as a piece of scientific intelligence, I may 

 add, that the original observations on the fixed stars, made with 

 the Ordnance zenith sector, are also now in the course of reduc- 

 tion. Preparatory to this, that instrument has been employed 

 for some time past at Greenwich, in order to compare observa- 

 tions made by it, with those made by the mural circles, to test 

 its accuracy, so that no reasonable doubt can now be cast on 

 its final results. 



When these and an arc of the meridian, traversing Britain 

 from perhaps the Isle of Wight on the south, to the island of 

 Balta in Shetland on the north, are completed, we shall then 

 have an arc of about 10° of the meridian measured vvdth ex- 

 treme precision in Europe, to be compared with another in 

 British India of still greater extent, and both executed with 

 British instruments of great accuracy, by British observers of 



VOL. XXIV. NO. XLVIII. APRIL 1838. X 



