Dr. blagden's Hijfoty of 
ar- 
§ 2. This was the period of fcientjfical enterprife. Soon 
after the intelligent Academicians of Peterlburg had penetrated 
into Siberia by order of the Ruffian Monarch, another potent 
Sovereign -fent out thofe philofophical expeditions, by which 
the opinion of our illuftrious countryman, refpedting the figure 
of the earth, was fo honourably confirmed. As it became ne- 
ceffary, for the determination of this quefHon, to meafure a 
degree at the arctic circle, the gentlemen who undertook it 
were unavoidably expoied to a great ieverity of cold. About 
the time when the quickfilver was exhibited frozen to Profeflbr 
gmelin , near the extremity of Afu, without overcoming his 
prepofleffion., M. maupertuis and his aflociates law the liquor 
congeal in their fpirit- thermometer at Tornea in Lapland*. 
Their mercurial thermometer funk at the fame time to - 37 0 of 
M. de Reaumur’s icale ; which, if the inftrument was exactly 
graduated according to that philofopher’s original idea, would 
undoubtedly Ihew that the quickfilver froze, as it correfponds 
with 5 1° of Fahrenheit. But the inaccuracies in conftrudting 
M. de Reaumur’s thermometers have been fo great, that I 
think no dependence can be placed upon this obfervation, efpe- 
'cially as it does not appear to have been attended with any ex* 
traordinary phenomenon. 
The fame objection holds good with regard to the obferva- 
tions made by M. gautier at Quebec, from the year 1743 to 
1749, an extract from which is infested in the Memoirs of th© 
French Academy of Sciences +. The account given of his 
thermometer is too indefinite to allow any certain inference to 
* Outhier Voyage au Nord, p. 145. 
t Mem. de l’Ac. des Scier.c. 1744, p. 135 ; 1 745, p. 194.; 1746, p. 88. j 
J747* P‘4-66.; 1750, p. 309. 
be 
