Meafurement of a Bnfe on Hounflow-Hcath. 389 



tliofe founded on a much longer bafe, and angles determined 

 by a large circular inf>rument, being that propofed, as the 

 beft that could be made ufe of in the operation now to be 

 mentioned. 



In the beginning of CXftober, 1783-, Comte d'Adkemar,.. 

 the French Ambaiiador, tranfmitted to Mr. Fox, then one of 

 his Majefty's principal Secretaries of State, a Memoir of M. 

 CAssirii DE Thury, m which he fets forth the great advan- 

 tage that would accrue to aftronomy, by carrying a feries of 

 triangles from, the neighbourhood of London to Dover, there 

 to be Gonnedled w^ith thofe already executed in France, by 

 which combined operations the relative fituations of the two 

 mcft famous obfervatories in Europe, Greenwich and Paris^ 

 would be more accurately afcertained than they are at prefent *». 



This Memoir the Secretary of State, by his Majefly's com- 

 mand, tranfmitted to Sir Joseph Banks, the very refpedable 

 and worthy Prefident of the Royal Society -, who, about the 

 middle xDf November, was pleafed to communicate it to me, 

 propofing at the fame time, that I fhould, on the part of the 

 Society, charge myfelf with the execution of the operation.. 

 To this proportion I readily aflented, on being foon afterwards 

 aflured, through the proper official channels, that my under- 

 taking it met with his Majefty's moil: gracious approbation. 



A generous and beneficent Monarch, whofe knowledge and 

 love of the fciences are fufficiently evinced by the prote£lioa 

 which HE conftantly affords them, and under whofe aufpices 

 they are feen daily to flourifh, foon fupplied the funds that 

 were judged neceflary. What his Majefty has been pleafed to^ 



P* M. Cassini's Memoir, with the Aftronomer Royal's remarks on what is 

 therein alledged, concerning the uncertainty of the relative fitua-tions of the two 

 Obfervatories, will be given in the feqiiel. 



give 



