THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE STATE 



was called upon for advice and assistance. A Committee 

 was appointed to investigate the wretched state of ventila- 

 tion in jails. A ventilator, invented by one of the Com- 

 mittee, was erected in Newgate, reducing at once the 

 number of deaths from eight a week to about two a month. 

 Of the eleven workmen employed to put up the ventilator, 

 seven caught the fever and died. 



At the request of the Government, Committees were 

 appointed to consider the best form of protection of build- 

 ings, and, later on, of ships at sea, from lightning. 



The Society took a very active part in the measurement 

 of a degree of latitude, afterwards in the length of a pen- 

 dulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of London, and 

 in the comparison of the British standards with the linear 

 measure adopted in France. A Committee was appointed 

 to compare the Society's standard yard with that of the 

 Exchequer. Later, in 1834, when the standard yard was 

 lost in the destruction by fire of the Houses of Parliament, 

 a Commission (all the members of which were Fellows of 

 the Royal Society) was appointed to consider the steps 

 to be taken for the restoration of the standards. 



It was at the instance of the Council of the Society, 

 who petitioned George in. for the necessary funds, that 

 the King gave his consent to a geodetical survey in 1784, 

 with the immediate object of establishing a trigonometrical 

 connection between the Observatories of Greenwich and 

 Paris. The work, under General Roy, for which the 

 Copley Medal was awarded to him, served as a basis for 



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