On the Figure of the Earth. 299 
of an invariable form, the diurnal motion of which he had pre- 
viously determined at London ; and the oscillations of which he 
had also observed in these different places. It is the same ope- 
ration which, among many others, our countryman Capt. Frey- 
‘cinet is executing, at this moment, in his Voyage round the 
World, with pendulums constructed by the direction of M. Arago. 
Captain Kater was received at the Shetland Islands by the same 
Mr. Edmonston who had received me with such obliging hospi- 
tality two years ago. He has made observations in the same 
place where I did, with the same assistance, and the same ac- 
commodations ; for, after so many services received from this 
excellent man, the obligation, in his opinion, is still due by him, 
and not by us, for having penetrated into these remote islands, 
and connected with the rest of the world, by the permanent ope- 
rations of science, the obscure and peaceable corner of the earth 
in which Providence had placed him. I have the pleasure of be- 
ing able to announce, that the observations of Captain Kater are 
found to accord almost identically with mine, as he himself has 
assured me, in sending me a view of his results in exchange for 
mine, which I addressed to him. Having thus the lengths of 
the pendulum measured by an uniform process upon the same 
meridian from Formentara, the most southern of the Pithiuse 
islands, to Unst, the most northern of the Shetland Islands, and 
not only in these two islands, but in a great number of interme- 
diate points, the flatness of the earth can, by these lengths, be de- 
termined with great exactness. But the amount that results from 
it is found to be exactly the same that is drawn from the lunar 
inequalities, or from the comparison of terrestrial degrees mea- 
sured at very distant latitudes; so that all these methods, so dif- 
ferent in their progress, so distinct in their processes, definitively 
concur, and terminate in this one result—the flatness of the earth; 
namely, the excess of the radius of the equator above the radius 
which extends to the pole is between *-——and of the latter 
radius. The difference between these extreme amounts, betwixt 
which the truth isnow found to be comprised, will produce but one 
hundred toises either more or less on the length of the semi-axis, 
which passes by the poles of the earth; and after the correctness 
of the observations which established this fact, as well as from 
their number and their different natures, it can be no longer a 
subject of discussion. 
* These quantities, expressed in vulgar fractions, are so indistinctly 
printed in our copy of the Moniteur, (and, we suspect, in the whole im- 
pression, for we have taken the pains to see several copies) as to be quite 
legible. If any of our friends have been so fortunate as to meet with a 
legible copy, or ean, from any other source, furnish us with them, we sball 
gladly insert them in a future number. 
In 
