C 7 3 
for abfolutely exa&, have concluded Sir Ifaac New- 
ton’s reafonings on that fubjetf: to be faulty ; while 
Father Bofcowic, a Jefuit at Rome, making them 
quite loofe and uncertain, thinks no argument at all 
can be drawn from them, concerning the earth’s 
figure ; far lefs in confirmation of the Newtonian 
theory. 
5. In oppofition to thefe two extremes, equally con- 
trary toreafon, as they are to each other, F. Frifi writes 
the treatife now before us* in the introduction to which- 
he fhews, 1 . That, altbo the ratio of the axis of the 
earth to its equatorial diameter is, from M. de Mau- 
pertuis’s operations in Lapland, and afterwards in 
France, that of 177 to 1785 and by the theory only 
229 to 230 ;yet the difference is no more, than what 
might arife from a miitake of about 60 toifes in the. 
meafure of either of the two degrees, that are com- 
pared, or of 30 toifes in each of them. Or, fuppofh 
the meafure of the arcs to be exaCt, the fame dif- 
ference might be owing to an error of 4 or 5 fe- 
conds in the agronomical part. And fuch errors, 
or others equivalent to them, in a courfe of fo ma» 
ny combined operations, our author looks upon as 
difficult to be avoided. But he adds, if the obfer- 
vations of M. de Maupertuis, and his fellow acade- 
micians, feem to differ from the theory, thofe of’ 
Meffieurs Bouguer and de la Condamine exaftly 
agree with it : According to whom, a degree at the 
equator, containing 5677 3 toifes, and in latitude 
49 ° 22 [ 57 1 83 toifes, the difference of the axis and: 
equatorial diameter comes out to be 
6. In anfwer to F. Bofcowic, and thofe who make - 
no account of the obfervations, our author allows* 
that,. 
