ARTICLE II. 
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An account of EXPERIMENTS to ascertain the length of the seconDs PENDULUM, af CoLumBIA CoL~ 
LEGE, New-York; by Caprain Epwarp Sasing, of the Royal (British) Artillery ; F. R. S. 
and Honorary member of the Historical and of the Literary and Philosophical Societies of 
New-York. 
(Read April, 1823.) 
PREVIOUSLY to entering into the detail of the experiments which form 
the subject of this paper, it may be desirable to premise a brief notice of the 
occasion and motives which led to their being made, in particular, in the 
city of New-York. 
I had been engaged, in the summer of 1822, in conducting a series of ex- 
periments of the same kind, at several stations near the equator, to be com- 
bined ultimately with others in the middle and northern latitudes, in deducing 
a more precise knowledge of the figure of the earth than has been hereto- 
fore obtained. 
In the prosecution of this design, | was desirous of an opportunity of 
adding a station in or about the 40th degree of latitude, in the course of my 
return from the West Indies to Europe; and should probably have selected 
New-York for such purpose, from its convenience of access and anchorage, 
and from the confidence with which every facility and assistance which 
might be required could be anticipated ; even if a stronger inducement had 
not presented itself, in the hope that experiments of this nature, made in one 
of the principal cities of the United States, might have a value beyond their 
immediate object. 
A desire of permanently fixing the national standard of linear measure, 
by comparison with some determinate and ascertained length in nature, has 
been strongly excited, for some years past, in several countries of Europe ; 
in Great Britain and in France in particular, it has given rise to extensive 
and laborious operations, carried on since the last century, for the measure- 
ment of the arc of the meridian, passing through those countries ; and more 
