18 ON THE GENERAL FORM AND 



5. La Place, from fifteen pendulums 



ili 



6. Ditto, a second, from more arcs 



308 



7. Ditto, by analysis from pendulums, and 



from the lunar inequalities arising from 

 its oblateness - 



306,&7 



8. Ditto, a second, from further similar ob- 



servations 



810 



9. Mr. Ivory - -^ 



J 295,5 



10. Sabine, from pendulums, by Clairault's 



formula - 



288,4 



11. Ditto, from Kater's observations 



289 5 



12. Ditto, from Arago and Biot's 



288,5 



13. Medium 



289,1 



Such is the present state of this question ; but it 

 has also been conceived, from different observations, 

 that the meridians are not themselves elliptical ; and 

 the law of the diminution has further appeared, to 

 some, to be unexpectedly irregular, as if the figure of 

 the earth was very complicated ; while the examina- 

 tion of measurements made to the south of the equator, 

 at the Cape of Good Hope, and elsewhere, seems 

 further to prove that, so far from being a solid of 

 revolution, the two hemispheres on the opposite sides 

 of the equator do not correspond, either in figure or 

 magnitude. But I must pass from this subject, as yet 

 far too obscure to permit us to feel satisfied respecting 

 many of these supposed results. 



If the earth were a homogeneous fluid, with the 

 force of gravity placed in its centre, and diminishing 

 in the other parts of the mass in the direct ratios of their 

 distances from that point, the spheroid must be an 

 ellipsoid of revolution ; as no other form will produce 

 the equilibrium of all the imaginary columns between 



