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For the Spy. 
CRITICISM ON ST. IMERRE, <cc. 
Cincinnati Reailing-ronm , JVbv. 1, 1819. 
I find in St. Pierre’s ‘studies of nature,’ 
vol. 1, page 113 , a quotation from Child- 
rev, who, like St. Pierre, supposed the 
poles of the earth to be covered with ice, 
: so high as to give the earth’s shadow on 
'the Jinoon an oval or eliptical form. He 
states, that Tycho Brhae, in 1588, and 
Kepler, in 1624, each observed the moon, 
when under a central eclipse, the plane 
of the earth’s equator then passing nearly 
centrally through both the sun and moon: 
I the eclipse in both cases he savs, differed 
widely from the calculation; “for not 
only was the duration of total darkness 
extremely short, but the rest of the dura¬ 
tion, previous and posterior to the total 
obscuration, was still shorter; as if the 
figure of the earth were eliptical, having 
the smaller diameter under the equator, 
and the greater from pole to pole.” 
The conclusion I draw from the above 
quotation, and I think fairly, is, that the 
calculation of the eclipse, estimated the 
earth to be a round globe, and of a diam¬ 
eter through the poles, about equal to 
that of the known diameter through the 
equator; or, in other words,he estimated 
the shadow, as it usually appeared on the 
moon in common eclipses, where the earth 
hangs with her axis diagonally between 
the sun and moon, (instead of being per¬ 
pendicular to a line drawn from the sun 
to the mooon, as was the case in the e- 
clipse here described;) therefore, if the 
i *hove eclipse was found to be of shorter 
duration, or less total, than was calcula¬ 
ted, and probably oval withal, the short¬ 
ness of it could not have arisen from an 
elongation at the poles of the earth, while 
ler diameter at the equator remained the 
same ; for, although an elongation at the 
oblonJ f ] eX ! Stins at all > mi & ht P^duce an 
could^noi^ <m i’ ° n the moun ' s (lisc ’ ^ 
* ^ en< i 1° lessen the usual size of 
