72 Mechanical Philosophy, [Chap. I. 



AVhile these noble and successful exertions were 

 making in Great Britain, to improve the science of 

 astronomy, the philosophers of France were em- 

 ploying themselves in the same field of inquiry, 

 and with very honourable success. The real figure 

 of the globe we inhabit had not been, before this 

 time, satisfactorily ascertained. M. Cassini, the 

 Astronomer Royal at Paris, believed its figure to 

 be that of a prolate spheroid, or in other words, 

 that the polai^' diameter was greater than the equa- 

 torial; while Newton had been led, by his prin- 

 ciples, to a conclusion directly opposite, and had 

 taught that it must be an oblate spheroid^ or flattened 

 at the poles. To determine the question, between 

 these contending parties, the French Royal Aca- 

 demy of Sciences, under the authority and patron- 

 age of Lewis XV, resolved to have two degrees 

 of the meridian measured, the one as near the 

 Equator, and the other as near the Pole, as pos- 

 sible. For this purpose, one company of philoso- 

 phers, consisting of Messrs. Godin, Condamine, 

 and Bouguer, to whom the King of Spain added 

 don Ulloa and don Juan, was dispatched, in 

 173.5, to South America; and another company, 

 consisting of Messrs. Maupertuis, Clairault, Ca- 

 mus, Ic Monier, and Outhior, attended by pro- 

 fessor Celsius, of Upsal, was sent to Lapland. 

 These companies, after devoting several years to 

 the task committed to them, and encountering nu- 

 merous difficulties in the prosecution of it, at length 

 completed their design. The result proved to be 

 an ample confirmation of Newton's opinion ; for 

 a degree near the Pole being found to measure 

 more than one near the Enuator, they necessarily 



