1 56 Pendulum. — Steam-Vessels. — Figure of the Earth. 



properly represented to the Directors of the Honourable the 

 East India Company, they have, much to their credit, taken the 

 matter into consideration ; and it is now expected that the ne- 

 cessary instruments to render the Madras Observatory efficient 

 will soon be supplied, so that we may expect, ere long, to hear 

 that regular observations are taken in that quarter of the Bri- 

 tish dominions. 



CAPT. KATER's pendulum. FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 



Our scientific readers need not be informed how much at- 

 tention has been, for some time, bestowed upon those branches 

 of science which have for their object the ascertaining the true 

 figure of the earth. But it may not be known to many of 

 them, that much in the furtherance of this object has been made 

 to depend on the results obtained from observations made by 

 means of Capt. Kater's invariable pendulum. To give ftill 

 efficacy to the knowledge to be obtained by this means, a pen- 

 dulum made under Capt. Kater's directions was constructed 

 by jNlr. Thomas Jones, which has been tried at the different 

 stations of the Trigonometrical Survey by the ingenious in- 

 ventor himself, and the results obtamed thereby have proved 

 exceedingly satisfactory. 



In consequence of these results, one of these pendulums was 

 made about two years ago, under the inspection of Capt. Ka- 

 ter, by the same ingenious artist who made the pendjilum to 

 which we have alluded, and was sent out to Mr. Goldingham, 

 the astronomer who has the superintendance of the Madras 

 Observatory, who has made many observations therewith, the 

 results of which have agreed v/ith the observations made on 

 the trigonometrical stations to a degree far beyond what could 

 have been expected. ■ 



STEAM-VESSELS. 



A very interesting experiment has been made of steam-i 

 vessels on canals, in the Union Canal at Edinburgh, with a 

 large boat, 28 feet long, constructed with an internal move- 

 ment. The boat had 26 persons on board ; and although 

 drawing 15 inches of water, she was propelled by only four 

 men at the rate of between four and five miles an hour, while 

 the agitation of the water was confined entirely to the centre 

 of the canal. 



MOTION OF THE ELASTIC FLUIDS. 



In the Quarterly Journal 1817, Mr. Faraday has stated that 

 the different gases move thi'ough pipes with different velocities 

 under the same degree of pressure; that is, quicker in propor- 

 tion to their levity. On the contrary, Girard endeavours to 

 prove in the Annates de Chimie, xvi. 129. that all elastic 



fluids 



