iOB 



FIGURE or A GRAVITATING BODY. 



Stated, or rather as the olficer, ou whose information he re- 

 lied, had affirmed ; nor even eight feet high, as Doctor 

 Turton, following Kerr's inference from a drawing, asserts; 

 yet it is a large and very formidable animal, conspicuous 

 for its strength, courage, and ferocity. It may not be true, 

 that the buffaloes of Asia and Europe constitute a single 

 species; but, certainly, the wild and tame buffaloes of /«' 

 dia do not appear to differ in any thing, except the superior 

 Cooddescrip- s'^*^ ^"^ more uniform figure of the wild animal. A better 

 tiun of the buf- description of the buffalo, than has yet been given, is per* 

 haps wanted; but the hos arnee of Kerr and Turton must 

 be rejected from systems of zoology^ as au erroneous de-» 

 scription taken from a loose drawing, assisted by the frag-» 

 ment of a skeleton. 



IX. 



A concise Method of determining the Figure of a gravitating 

 Body revolving round another. By a Correspondent, 



DL'ficiency of 

 Newton's re- 

 •eafches. 



Forces con- 

 cerned. 



SIR, 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 



JlT is well known, that there are some imperfections ia 

 Sir Isaac Newton's investigations respecting the figures of 

 gravitating bodies, which have been supplied by Maclau- 

 rin and Clairaut: the subject is however still considered as 

 difficult and intricate, and the simplest calculations re- 

 specting it have hitherto been too pro'.ix, to be distinctly 

 conceived as links of the same chain. I shall endeavour to 

 point out a method of treating it which is extremely com- 

 pendious and convenient. 



Neglecting in the first place the diurnal rotation, we may 

 snppose, that each particle of the body revolves in an equal 

 orbit, so that its centrifugal force may be equal to the mean 

 attractive force; then the local attractive force will be great- 

 er or less than this by a difference which must obviously be 

 proportional to t)ie distance from an equatorial plane per- 

 pendicular to the direction of the central body, and tending 



to 



