^ /.^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 



whole as the preceding fradion is of 



uni 



c^ 



# 



ty *. 



376. The 



« 



The time requifite for taking away by wafte and 



from 



5 



bottom 



koned lefs than 200 years. The fra£lion ttttt^^tt^tj 

 reduced to parts of a day, is -^^^-^-^^ of a fecond ; fo 

 that it would require 200 years to jQiorten the length of 

 the day, by the above fradion of a fecond ; and there- 

 fore it would require 148354 times 200 years, or 

 29710800 years, to diminifh it an entire fecond. The 

 accumulated efFefl:, however, of all the diminutions du- 

 ring that period, would amount to much more : and if 

 we had any perfectly uniform ilandard to compare the 

 motion of the earth with, its difference from that fland- 



ard would increafe as the fquares of the time, and the 

 total acceleration would amount to one fecond in 



77 



years 



Wh 



this bears to the 



age of the globe itfelf, it exceeds more than ten times 

 the age of any hillorical record 



Though Frifius concludes, as is ftated here, that the 

 acceleration produced in the diurnal motion of the 

 earth, is far too inconiiderable to become the object of 

 allronomical obfervation, he makes a fuppolition diffi- 

 cult to be reconciled with this concluiion, namely, that 

 the acceleration has had a fenfible effed on the figure of 

 the earth, or rather of the fea, having increafed the cen- 

 trifugal force, and thereby accumulated the waters un- 

 der the equator, in the prefent, 



mor 



ages. 



Such 



accumulation 



thinks ag 



certaii^S 



