VOL. XI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 305 



fruits of all things; the first deer they kill after they are in season, they lay pri- 

 vately on the head of a tree near the place where they killed it, and they say, 

 no good luck will befal them that year if they do not offer the first of every 

 thing. They burn the bodies of the dead, and sow up the ashes in mats, which 

 they place near the cabins of their relations. 



jidvertisement concerning the Quantity of a Degree of a great Circle, in English 



Measures. N*' 126, p. 636. 



Some time since an account was given* concerning the quantity of a degree 

 of a great circle, according to the tenor of a printed French discourse, entitled 

 De la Mesure de la Terre. The editor not then knowing what had been done 

 of that nature here in England, but having been since directed to the perusal 

 of a book, composed and published by that known mathematician Richard Nor- 

 wood in the year l636, entitled The Seaman's Practice, wherein, among other 

 particulars, the compass of the terraqueous globe, and the quantity of a degree 

 in English measures are delivered, approaching very near to that which has 

 been lately observed in France ; he thought it would much conduce to mutual 

 confirmation, in a summary narrative to take public notice here of the method 

 used by the said English mathematician, and of the result of the same; which, 

 in short, is as follows: 



An. 1635, Mr. Norwood, reader of the mathematics in London, observed as 

 exactly as he could, the summer solstitial meridian altitude of the sun in the 

 middle of the city of York, by an arch of a sextant of more than five feet 

 radius, and found it to be 5Q° 33'; and formerly, viz. An. l633, he had ob- 

 served the like altitude in the city of London, near the Tower, to be 62° l'; 

 the difference between which numbers gives 2° 28' for the difference of latitude 

 between those two cities. Whereupon he actually measured for the most part the 

 way from York to London with chains, and where he measured not, he paced it, 

 saying, that through custom he usually came very near the truth ; observ ing all 

 the way he came, with a circumferentor, all the principal angles of position or 

 windings of the way, with a competent allowance for other lesser windings^ 

 ascents, and descents ; not laying these down by a protractor after the usual 

 manner, but framing a table, much exacter and fitter for this purpose. And by 

 this method and measure he found the parallel of York from that of London 

 to be 9149 chains, every chain being 6 poles or 99 feet, ]6i- English feet to a 

 pole. Now these 9 149 chains being equal to 2° 28', the aforesaid difference of 



* See No. 1 12 and No. 124 of these Tracts. 

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