50 Lord Brougham’s Address on the Inauguration of a 
mutual gravitation of the particles which form its mass, combined — 
with their motion round its axis, he deduced the proposition that 
it must be flattened at the poles; and he calculated the propor — 
tion of its polar to its equatorial diameter. By a most ee 
— on the force of gravitation in those regions, by the 
that the excess of the equatorial diameter is about 11 miles less 
than he had deduced it from the theory; and thus that the globe 
is not homogeneous. But on the assumption of a fluid mass, 
the ground of his hydrostatical investigation, his proportion of 
229 to 230 remains unshaken, and is precisely the one adopted — 
and reasoned from by Laplace, after all the improvements and 
all the discoveries of later — Surely at this we may well 
with its most sublime results, now stands in the attitude, and of 
future improvement, only proclaim his disciples 
