248 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



meetings of the French Academy, when this ques- 

 tion was discussed, De la Condamine, an ardent and 

 eager man, proposed to settle this question by send- 

 ing members of the academy to measure a degree 

 of the meridian near the equator, in order to com- 

 pare it with the French degrees, and offered himself 

 for the expedition. Maupertuis, in like manner, 

 urged the necessity of another expedition to mea- 

 sure a degree in the neighbourhood of the pole. 

 The government received the applications favour- 

 ably, and these remarkable scientific missions were 

 sent out at the national expense. 



From this time there was no longer any doubt 

 as to the fact of the earth's oblateness, and the 

 question only turned upon its quantity. Even be- 

 fore the return of the academicians, the Cassinis 

 and La Caille had measured the French arc, and 

 found errours which subverted the former result, 

 making the earth oblate to the amount of 1-1 68th 

 of its diameter. The expeditions to Peru and to 

 Lapland had to struggle with difficulties in the 

 execution of their design, which make their nar- 

 ratives resemble some romantic history of irregular 

 warfare, rather than the monotonous records of 

 mere measurements. The equatorial degree em- 

 ployed the observers not less than eight years. 

 When they did return, and their results were com- 

 pared, their discrepancy, as to quantity, was con- 

 siderable. The comparison of the Peruvian and 

 French arcs gave an ellipticity of nearly 1-3 14th, 



