2 MEASUREMENT OF AN AUG 



count of that measurement would be transmitted to the Royal Society by 

 the honorable the Court of Directors";"!" "have given no particulars of it 

 here, but shall only notice the general results as combined with the ope- 

 rations hereafter mentioned. These meridional measurements being the 

 chief foundation of the trigonometrical survey, which has been car- 

 ried on under my direction for some years past, it is to be hoped that 

 the East-India company will be desirous of having them published along 

 with the general account of the survey. But such a work being' arran- 

 ged in a great measure according to the order of time, must exhibit 

 what is purely scientific, in a detached and mutilated from ; it is there- 

 fore my intention to collect, at some future period, all the particulars 

 that regard the comparison of celestial and terrestrial arcs, and digest 

 them in a manner better prepared for the learned reader. The present 

 period is replete with splendid performances in practical science, and. 

 although their objects be different, yet there result from each of them 

 certain facts that tend to throw new light on various philosophical sub- 

 jects. The grand operations in France, conducted by the celebrated 

 De Lambre and Me'c'hain, have for their' object the determination of a 

 standard measure; but, to accomplish that, they have measured an arc 

 on the meridian upwards of nine degrees in length. The chief intention 

 of the great survey in England, under Col. Mudge, is to obtain a correct 

 plan of the Island of Great-Britain, and the geographical positions of all 

 known places, in latitude and longitude. In carrying this into effect, it 

 was necessary to have a series of triangles in the direction of the meri- 

 dian, from which has been deduced an arc of 2 50 23, which is to be 

 extended northerly.. The principal object of my own labours, when 

 tliis work was first proposed to the Madras government, was to connect 

 the two coasts of Coromandei and Malabar, and to determine the latitudes 



