222 «Length of a Degree of the Terrestrial Meridian. 
* 
to the London artist, was pronounced by him to be the highest 
encomium that could be bestowed.* Dr. Prince, from the love of 
science and an ardent zeal to promote its diffusion, used to keep on 
hand collections of some of the most important philosophical instru- 
ments, for the supply of colleges and other higher seminaries, while 
the trifling commission which he charged on the original bills was 
hardly sufficient to save him from loss. Ata very short notice, he 
displayed for me a very complete pneumatic apparatus which woul 
have been a treasure to any college. In this particular, as well as in 
the tout ensemble of his character, his place will hardly be filled 
again; and he himself enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing that the 
exigencies of science in this country, could now be much better sup- 
plied than when he was its sole pioneer in the eastern, and almost 
in the United States. 
In all future periods of our advancement in the physical sciences, 
his name will be remembered with honor, clarum et venerabile nomen. 
Arr. II.—On the Length of a Degree of the Terrestrial Meridi- 
an—Oblateness and axes of the Earth—Comparative oblateness 
(of the Planets—Reduction of Latitude—Radius of the Earth— 
and Length of a Degree of Parallels of Latitude ; with appro- 
priate Tables ; by Tuo. Jerrerson Cram, Principal Assistant 
to Prof. of Nat. and Exp. Philos. U. S. Mil. Acad., West Point. 
Length of a Degree of the Terrestrial Meridian. 
1. By direct admeasurement, and by other observations, it has 
been conclusively shown, that the curvatures of the terrestrial me- 
diminish, as we recede from the equator in going towards the 
poles ; whence the inference, that the earth resembles in figure more 
rieike a spheroid than any other mathematical body. The spheroid 
ei the solid which would be generated, by revolving an ellipse around 
its minor axis ; and it is to such a solid, that we shall assimilate the 
figure of the earth in what follows. 
a same artist informed mé, that he was in possession of ee 01 : e : 
ts, con 
structed by Dr. Prince’s own hands, which did him equal ss es pages ta Peabere gale” 
pher, and that they g th icles upon which i 
; ™ valne. They came to him, 
(R. Banks, 441 Strand,) from the collection of the late Mr. Adams. It is my tespreseion that 
‘was a lucernal microscope, 
