326 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
ON THE EFFECT OF THE VARIATION OF GRAVITY ON SHIPS’ 
CARGOES IN DIFFERENT LATITUDES. BY A CORRESPONDENT. 
Many useful and interesting articles on the mercantile law of 
shipping not long since appeared in the Law Magazine, No. 32, 
p. 367; in one of them, the writer, speaking of the master’s duties 
with regard to the ship’s cargo, says, ‘‘ ‘The goods are to be delivered 
according to the number, weight, or measure indicated in the bill of 
lading. In ascertaining the number no difficulty can exist ; in other 
cases the goods are weighed at the king’s beam, or public scale, or 
are measured by official meters, where such an establishment exists. 
Not unfrequently serious discrepancies are found to exist between 
the results so obtained and the quantities specified in the bill of 
lading ; and it is not always easy to determine whether a deficiency 
is attributable to natural and intrinsic causes, such as evaporation, 
leakage, shaking, compression, or the like, or to causes for which 
the owner should be responsible. It is evident however that con-_ 
siderable latitude of allowance should be made, as well on account 
of variation in the weights and measures of different parts, as of the 
changes both in bulk and gravity to which in the course of a long 
voyage many commodities are necessarily subject.” 
The latter part of this quotation suggested the formation of the 
inclosed tables*. It is well known that all bodies are affected by 
gravity, and that, in consequence of the earth’s being an oblate 
spheroid, gravity varies in different latitudes: with the view of ex- 
hibiting the variation in the weight of a body, in different places, oc- 
casioned by the action of gravity, the subsequent table has been 
formed ; it was intended to clear up one of the doubtful points named 
above. The article has no pretensions to orginality or high scientific 
merit : how far it may be worth preserving on the score of utility 
or as a matter of curiosity, the readers of the Philosophical Maga- 
zine, should it be inserted, will form their own judgement. 
Supposing the earth an oblate spheroid, the axis of which is to its 
equatorial diameter as 229: 230, we have the gravitation at the 
equator to the gravitation at the pole as 230: 231; and generally the 
gravitation at the equator is to the gravitation at any place of which 
the latitude is /, as 230: 230 + sin? /. It also follows that the gra- 
vitation at a place of which the latitude is / is to the gravitation at 
any other place the latitude of which is /', as 230+ sin?/7: 230+ sin?J'. 
Let then W be the weight of a body at the place 7 and W’ the weight 
of the same body at the place /’, 
230+ sin? J! w'! ia 230 a ein, 
<=> = , that is ———_— 
230 + sin? J WwW 230+ sin? / 
weight of the body at the place of which the latitude is /’. 
Let 7 = 51° 32! the latitude of London, the sin? 7 = °61304, and 
the constant denominator of the above fraction is 23061304; the 
method of obtaining the numerator is obvious, and the decimal mul- 
tiplier in the table is produced by dividing the one by the other in the 
usual manner. Hence, if any commodity weigh W at London, its 
xX Wis"the 
then 
* We are obliged to omit the tables, from want of room: their con- 
struction and use are well explained above.—Eprr. 
