52^ riGURE OF THE EARTH. 



tions still farther sc)uthward, from Barcelona as far as For- 

 metueraj the southernmost of the Baleanc islands. Fortunaielj 

 this last undertaking, which forms a most satisfactory sup- 

 plement to the former, was completed by the month of May, 

 1808, at a period when political circumstances would not ad- 

 mit of any further operations being p-arsued, as a means of 

 verifying the results, by measuring a base which should be in- 

 dependent of those formerly obtained in f ranee. 

 Verification of In the year 1801, the Swedish Academy of Sciences, encou- 

 rne^sm-es^bv ^aged by the success of the operations conducted in France, 

 the Swedish sent aJso three of its members into Lapland, to verify their 

 academy. former measurement, taken in 1730, by new methods, and by 



"^ the use of new instruments, similar to those which had recently 



been used in France, and of which the National Institute made 

 a handsome present to the Swedish Academy. The results of 

 this new undertaking, which terminated in 1803, were drawn 

 up by M. Svanberg, and are highly interesting, by their exact- 

 ness, by the perspicuity of the details^ and even a certain 

 degree of novelty given to the subject by the arrangement 

 adapted by the learned author M. Svanberg. 

 The affree- These new measures were found to confirm, in a remark- 



inent of these able manner, the general results of those which had preceded, 

 m^^confirmhf* ^"^ S^^^ ^'^^^ nearly the same proportion for the eccentricity 

 the general re- and other dimensions of the globe, so that there would not 

 *"''■* have remained the smallest doubt respecting the figure of the 



earth being flattened at the poles, had there not been a fourth 

 measurement performed in England at the same time as that 

 undertaken in Lapland, the results of which were entirely 

 was contra- reverse. This measurement, which comprised an arc of 2° 50', 

 results of the ^^^ undertaken by Lieut. Col. Mudge, Fellow of the Royal 

 atJnieasure- ^ Society, with instruments of the most perfect construction that 

 Enelaiid* ^ ^'^ '^^^ ^^^'' -'®* ^^G"^ finished by any artist, contrived and executed 

 for that express purpose, by the celebrated Ramsden. The 

 details of the observations and other operations of Lieut, 

 (pol. Mudge, may be seen in the volume of the Philosophical 

 Transactions for the year 1 803 ; and one cannot but admire 

 the beauty and perfection of the instruments employed by that 

 skilful observer, as well as the scrupulous care bestowed oa 

 und§r circum- every part of the service in which he was engaged. Bengal 

 nance* o pe- jjgj^^g ^gj.^ employed on this occasion, as objects at the several 



stations. 



