280 Academy of Sciences at Stockholm. 



ingly short. The number of these angles amounted to about 

 80; and it was requisite that the measurement of each 

 should be repeated at least thirty times, in order to render 

 as insignificant as possible the errors in the graduation, from 

 which no instrument is entirely free. This was not only 

 done, but many of the angles were measured sixty and even 

 eighty times ; and at the end of August the operations were 

 so far advanced, that observations were made of the pole- 

 star, by which the extent of the arc of the meridian mea- 

 sured could be determined. The last southern point was at 

 Malorn, a small island in the archipelago of Tornca, where 

 the gentlemen employed arrived in the beginning of Sep- 

 tember, and continued their obsen'ations on the latitude of 

 this place till the end of October. The observation of the 

 zenith distance of the pole-star was repeated 400 times. 



In order to avoid, in determining the absolute latitude of 

 the first and last stations, the uncertainty which might arise 

 from the declination of the pole-star, its zenith distance at 

 its inferior passage of the meridian was observed 88 times. 

 When all these operations were performed, the expedition 

 \\-as considered to be at an end, and the observers returned 

 home. Messrs. Ofvcrbom and Sv^anberg, in order to gratify 

 the curiosity of astronomers, who are interested in the result 

 of this new measurement, immediately on their return to 

 Stockholm undertook a calculation ; according to which it 

 appears, that in the latitude of 66"^ 20' 11-83" the length of 

 a degree of the meridian is 57209 toises, or 196 toises less 

 than that given by the measurement of Maupertuis. This 

 without doubt will be an agreeable novelty to those who are 

 acquainted with the importance of this question, and its 

 relation to the grand phasnomena of nature. If this result be 

 compared with that of Bouguer's measurement at the equator, 

 we obtain 1-3 13th for the flattening of the earth at the pole; 

 and the northern degree of the meridian, which hitherto has 

 been so different from all other results deduced from the pre- 

 cession of the equinoxes, experiments with the pendulum, 

 calculations of the parallax compared with the ellipsoid form 

 of Jupiter, no longer forms any exception, but coincides 

 nearly with ihat which the greatest mathematicians of the 

 last century were obliged to^adniit. Messrs. Ofvcrbom and 

 Svanberg, however, do not consider the above result as ab- 

 solute and definitive, because improvements may still be 

 made in their nrovisional calculation, which perhaps may 

 amount to 20 toises ; and this is the more possible, as one 

 second of variation will occasion a difference of 16 toises. 



All 



