9 2 
Captain Kater on the comparison of 
If the results of the two series of comparisons made by Dr. 
Wollaston be examined, it will be seen that the greatest 
difference from those above given, is not two ten-thousandths 
of an inch, and this difference appears to have arisen almost 
wholly from the ill defined dots of the Royal Society's 
standard. 
The standard used in the Trigonometrical Survey, being 
thus unexpectedly found to differ so considerably from every 
other standard of authority, the Commissioners of Weights 
and Measures proposed, in their Second Report, that Bird’s 
Parliamentary standard of 1760, should be considered as the 
foundation of all legal weights and measures. 
It may be seen, that the standard thus selected, differs so 
little, if at all, from that of Sir George Shuckburgh, that 
they may, for every purpose, be considered as perfectly iden- 
tical ; and this agreement is particularly convenient, because 
the length of the metre having been determined by com- 
parisons with Sir George Shuckburgh’s scale, and a fac simile 
of it made by Mr. Troughton, for Professor Pictet, all 
measures on the Continent are converted into English mea- 
sure, by a reference to Sir George Shuckburgh’s standard. 
In determining the figure of the earth, by means of the 
measurement of distant portions of the same meridian, many 
anomalies have been remarked, which may, in some instances, 
be attributed to the difference of the standards employed in 
such measurements. As an example of the importance of this 
consideration, I shall examine the results deduced by Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Lambton, from a comparison of three sections 
of the great arc measured by him in India, with the lengths 
of the French, the English, and the Swedish degrees. The 
