189 French National Institute. 



tions of France and Spain were not then sufficiently ami- 

 cable to allow us to flatter ouiselves with the hope of ob- 

 taining that aid and concert indispensably necessary for 

 operations so difficult ; but these dispositions having hap- 

 pily changed, the French government gave orders for tiie 

 continuation of our meridian to the Balearic islands. C. 

 Mechain is already at Barcelona with instruments the best 

 suited to the difficult)' of the observations, which will be 

 begun as soon as he has concerted the proper measures 

 with the Spanish commissioners. This new enterprise pro- 

 mises two advantages. The first is, that it will add two 

 degrees to the arc already measured, which vi'ill be sufficient 

 to indemnify us for the time and labour it may cost. An- 

 otiicr advantage, still more important in the eyes of some 

 persons, is, that we shall have a whole arc equally divided 

 hito two in the parallel of 45", and from which, without 

 any supposition on the figrure of the earth, we may deduce 

 the whole extent of the meridian. 



The fame of these operations, of which France set the 

 example, has nriore than once excited the emulation of 

 neighbouring nations. Hence, after the measurements per- 

 formed by the French in Peru, at the polar circle, in France 

 itself, and at the Cape of Good Hope, we have seen de- 

 grees measured at Rome, Turin, Vienna, Flungary, Penn- 

 sylvania, and Milan. The Swedes have lately repeated and 

 extended with instruments made in France, and with all 

 the means furnished by the present state of the sciences 

 and the arts, the operations performed in 1736 at the polar 

 circle. The details of the new measurement have not yet 

 been published : but we learn by letters from M. Melander-. 

 hielm, perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences at 

 Stockholm, and the projector of the new operation, that 

 the conclusions deduced from it do not accoid with what 

 resulted from the first. The latter gave a degree which 

 was considerably different from all the rest, and supposed 

 so great a flattening, that it excited some suspicions in re- 

 gard to the exactness of tlie measure's. The new one re- 

 rnnciles the whole. This degree, compared with that of 

 France, gives for the flattening nearly the same quantity as 

 tiie degree of France compared with that of Peru. This 

 result would be so satisfactory that we scarcely dare to give 

 credit to it. There were some doubts in regard to the cor-r 

 rectness of the operations performed in ] 736 ; but the error 

 which it would be necessary to acknowledge in it far ex- 

 ceeds the limits in which it was supposed to be included.-— 

 Until the publication cf the labour of the Swedes has pro/ 



(lucc4 



