CAS 



606 



CAS 



Cassini When the war broke out in Flanders in 1741, Cas 

 de Thury. g j n j accompanied the king to that country, and took 

 V T"*"'' advantage of this opportunity of verifying the mea- 

 sure of a degree by Snejlius. From the materials 

 which he had collected, he prepared a particular 

 chart of that part of Flanders which had been occu- 

 pied by the French armies, and the king was so much 

 pleased with its accuracy, that he expressed his de- 

 aire to have a chart of France prepared in the same 

 manner. M. De Machaud, who was then comptrol- 

 ler general, furnished the money which was necessary 

 for this undertaking ; but these advances were dis- 

 continued by his successor M. de Sechelles, and the 

 King, out of regard to Cassini, announced to him 

 personally this disagreeable intelligence; " Sire," re- 

 plied Cassini, " if you will only deign to say that 

 you view with concern the suspension of this under- 

 taking, and that you wish for its continuance, I shall 

 take charge of the rest." The king readily consented 

 to this request, and Cassini immediately formed the 

 plan of a company who should make the necessary 

 advances, and repay themselves by the sale of the 

 charts. This company was formed, and Cassini had 

 the satisfaction of seeing his great undertaking ac- 

 complished. He published different works relative 

 to these charts, and each sheet, the number of which 

 was 183, was accompanied with an alphabetical ta- 

 ble, containing the distance from the meridian, and 

 from the perpendicular, of all the different places. 



These charts of France inspired the sovereigns of 

 other countries with a desire of having their own 

 kingdoms surveyed, and, in 1760, the emperor in- 

 vited M. Cassini to Vienna, for the purpose of conti- 

 nuing to that city the perpendicular to the meridian 

 of Paris. On the 6th of June, 1761, he observed at 

 Vienna the transit of Venus, an account of which he 

 published in his Voyage en Allemagne, a work which 

 contains many notices respecting the geography of 

 the country, and the charts of Frich and Muller. 

 He published a new map of that country, which re- 

 presented a series of triangles from Strasburg to Tyr- 

 nau in Hungary. 



In pursuance of his great plan, Cassini proposed to 

 the British government to connect the general chart 

 of France with that of the British Isles. This pro- 

 posal was favourably received, and the trigonometrical 

 survey of this country, of which we shall give a full 

 account in another part of our work, has been car- 

 ried on with the greatest ability by General Roy and 

 General Mudge. 



The attention of M. Cassini was not diverted from 

 his astronomical studies, by the various geographical 

 labours in which he was engaged. He published, in 

 1756, addition* to the astronomical tables of his fa- 

 ther. The comparison of a great number of obser- 

 vations of the moon with the tables, induced him to 

 apply another equation whose period was 19 years. 

 In 1770 he published three almanacks, which were 

 accompanied by an universal instrument invented by 

 the Prince de Conti. The papers which he print- 

 ed in the Memoirs of the Academy, between the 

 years 1735 and 1770, amount to 70, and are all upon 

 astronomical subjects. 



Though Cassini had naturally a strong constitu- 

 tion, which enabled him to undergo the greatest fa- 

 tigue in the course of his geographical labours j yet, 



in the latter part of his life, he was seized with a ha- Cassiopeia, 

 bitual retention of urine, which rendered the last 12 Cs 

 years of his life particularly painful and distressing. ^ """Y"" 1 ' 

 In the month of August 1784, he was attacked with 

 the small pox, of which he died, on the 4th Septem- 

 ber, in the 71st year of his age. He left behind him 

 a daughter, and a son, the Count de Cassini, who suc- 

 ceeded him in the observatory, and, till about the end 

 of the French revolution, continued to prosecute the 

 study of his ancestors. The pleasures of a country 

 life, however, have drawn him from these pursuits ; 

 and his son, who forms the fifth generation of the 

 Cassinis, has exhibited no attachment to a science 

 with which the name of his family will be forever as- 

 sociated, (o) 



CASSIOPEIA. See ASTRONOMY, p. 745. 



CASSIUS, CAIUS, was a celebrated Roman, who 

 sustained a most important part in opposing the re- 

 volutions which had been planned by Julius Caesar at 

 a very early age. He was descended from ancestors 

 who had made a considerable figure in the state ; and 

 as the tone of temper of some, if not of the same fa- 

 mily, at least of the same name, bore a great resem- 

 blance to the ardour and impetuosity for which he 

 himself was so distinguished during the whole course 

 of his enterprising and eventful life, it has been affirm- 

 ed, that one of them, Sp. Cassius, after a triumph and 

 three consulships, was put to death by his own fa- 

 ther, in consequence of attempting to encroach upon 

 the liberties of his country. Of the truth of this 

 circumstance, however, as well as that of many others 

 in the earlier part of the Roman history, it is reason- 

 able to doubt. Young Cassius is represented to have 

 discovered at school a very high spirit of indepen- 

 dence, and to have given intimations of that impe- 

 rious and ungovernable disposition, \vh:ch never for- 

 sook him, even in those transactions which involved 

 the fate of Rome itself. Faustus, the son of the 

 dictator Sylla, had boasted of the greatness of his 

 father : Cassius, whose family was equally hostile 

 to Sylla with the other families in Rome, chas- 

 tised his companion with as much freedom as if 

 he had been the son of the meanest Roman citizen ; 

 and, in after life, he declared to Pompey, who had 

 alluded to the story, that if Faustus were to refer to 

 the same circumstance, he would repeat the blow. 

 At the usual age he was created quaestor, which was 

 the first step of preferment in the state, and gave 

 admission into the senate. In this capacity he ser- 

 ved under Crassus in the Parthian war ; and, upon 

 many occasions, discovered not only his bravery, his 

 great care that provisions and pay should be regu- 

 larly distributed to the army, the more peculiar 

 duty of his office, but he was also of the most essen- 

 tial service to the general himself, by the advice 

 which he from time to time gave him ; aad it 

 seems to be the opinion of ancient authors, that, 

 had Crassus been more attentive to his counsel, he 

 might have opposed more successfully that formi- 

 dable enemy, and might have saved himself and his 

 army from that disgrace with which they were 

 overwhelmed. Upon the death of Crassus, B- C. 53. 

 Cassius succeeded to the command of that shattered 

 fragment of the army which remained after so com- 

 plete a defeat. At the head of this body of troops 

 he retreated through Syria, and though pursued by 



