FRENCH GEODESY. 277 



So they erected pyramids of planks covered with 

 white linen to make them more conspicuous. This 

 was taken to mean something quite different. White 

 linen ! Who was the foolhardy man who ventured 

 to set up, on our heights so recently liberated, the 

 odious standard of the counter-revolution ? The 

 white linen must needs be edged with blue and red 

 stripes. 



Mechain, operating in Spain, met with other but 

 no less serious difficulties. The Spanish country 

 folk were hostile. There was no lack of steeples, 

 but was it not sacrilege to take possession of them 

 with instruments that were mysterious and perhaps 

 diabolical ? The revolutionaries were the allies of 

 Spain, but they were allies who smelt a little of the 

 stake. 



" We are constantly threatened," writes Mechain, 

 " with having our throats cut." Happily, thanks to 

 the exhortations of the priests, and to the pastoral 

 letters from the bishops, the fiery Spaniards con- 

 tented themselves with threats. 



Some years later, Mechain made a second expedi- 

 tion to Spain. He proposed to extend the meridian 

 from Barcelona to the Balearic Isles. This was the 

 first time that an attempt had been made to cross a 

 large arm of the sea by triangulation, by taking 

 observations of signals erected upon some high moun- 

 tain in a distant island. The enterprise was well 

 conceived and well planned, but it failed nevertheless. 

 The French scientist met with all kinds of difficulties, 

 of which he complains bitterly in his correspondence. 

 " Hell," he writes, perhaps with some exaggeration, 

 " hell, and all the scourges it vomits upon the earth — 



