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As notions long received acquire from thence a degree of credit 

 due only to truth; and as new opinions, contrary to thefe, and 

 in other refpects perhaps extraordinary in themfelves, meet 

 from thefe caufes with flow and difficult belief, however they 

 may appear to be fupported by arguments, authorities, or facts 

 (which it is prefumed have been freely and fairly urged in the 

 prefent cafe, to a degree that may at lean: entitle the matter to 

 fome attention) ; let us now proceed one ftep further. This mall 

 be to fhew, that what feems to be fo repugnant to the common 

 courfe of things (viz. that near the North Pole the cold mould 

 relax, and the ice be lefs troublefome) is perfectly conformable 

 to the laws of nature, or, which is the fame thing, to the will 

 and wifdom of our great Creator. If this can be proved, there 

 can be no farther difpute as to the poffibility of this paffage ; 

 more efpecially when it fhall alfo appear, that this affords a full 

 folution of all the doubts that have been fuggefted, and at the 

 fame time clearly accounts for, and effectually confirms, the facts 

 and reafonings deduced from them, which have been already ad- 

 vanced upon this fubject. To come then at once to the point. 



Sir Ifaac Newton, who it is univerfally allowed was equally 

 accurate, cautious, and judicious, in his philofophical decifions, 

 hath demonltrated clearly, that the figure of this our earth is not 

 fpherical, but of an oblate fpheroidal form, the diameter at the 

 equator being the greateft, and at the axis the leaft of all the lines 

 that can pafs through the center. He alfo determined, by a 

 mort curious calculation, the proportion. of thefe diameters to be 

 as two hundred and thirty to two hundred and twenty-nine. 

 Thefe fentiments of his have been experimentally verified by the 

 means which he alfo pointed out, viz. obferving the motion of 

 pendulums in very different latitudes, and the actual meafure- 

 meilt of a degree at the' equator and under the Arctic circle. 



This 



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