to attempt an equally conclusive result, by the comparison of ter- forw restrial measurements undertaken on the same decisive scale, of mətni which, his experiments with the pendulum afford the exampledge He has suggested a proceeding towards the attainment of such aubni result which we cannot do better than lay before our readers," adding our persuasion that it is well entitled to the serious const sideration of every man' of science, who, either in his publicedt to or private capacity, may have it in his power to promote its s execution. adi 17. 11:02 ni 998lą & of -husmil

"The success which has thus attended the attempt to carry into 9912 effect, under the conditions most favourable for the experiment, w the method of investigating the figure of the earth by means of the pendulum, and the consistent and precise result, far exceed-rmit ing previous expectation, which, under such circumstances, it has t been found to afford, encourage the belief that an equally satis factory conclusion, and one highly interesting in the comparison, might be obtained by the measurement of terrestrial degrees, d performed also under the requisite conditions to give its due effigno ciency to the method of experiment. Experience has fully shewn, 492 that no result of decisive character is to be expected from the resing petition or comparison of measurements in the middle latitudes; and that it is only from operations carried on in portions of the slei meridian widely separated from each other, that such an event 2001 can be regarded as of probable accomplishment. The project of 197 the original experimentors, of those eminent men, who nearly a 22 century ago, devised and executed corresponding measurements at the equator and at the arctic circle,-was of far more vigorous conception, than the steps of their successors have ventured to follow, even to the present period; and it is due to their memory to recognise that the failure on that occasion was not from insuf- gott ficient extension of view, or from deficiency in the spirit of end of terprise; but from the attempt having been made in the infancyRod of practical science, when the instruments were inferior, and the 32-59 modes of their most advantageous employment less understood, brot than they have since been rendered.

T >

"The discordancies, which appear in the comparison of the mea surements hitherto accomplished, are not so great as those which had resulted from the comparison of pendulum experiments, presode viously to the present attempt to give the latter method its full 110 and efficient trial: it has been also seen that in proportion as the arcs have been enlarged, so as to include the continuous measurement of more extended portions of the meridian, and as the pro❤250&m cesses of operation have been conducted with improved means, and increased attention to accuracy, the anomalies have progressively diminished; the prospect therefore, that they may be made

wholly to disappear, by combining the interposition of the greatest interval between the measurements that the meridian of an hemisphere will admit, would seem sufficiently probable to justify and induce the undertaking.

"Through the munificent liberality and splendid patronage of the East India Company, India already presents a determination of the arc contained between the 10th and 20th parallels: and as a consequence of the political changes which have recently taken place in South America, there is reason to hope, that the impediments to a measurement between the equator and the 10th degree, in the quarter of the globe best suited for the operation, will speedily be removed.

"In regarding the polar extremities of the meridian, the attention is naturally directed in the first instance to Spitzbergen, as the land of highest convenient access in either hemisphere; its qualification, in that respect, is indeed far beyond comparison with other lands, and is a point of very principal importance; its high latitude and conveniency of access do not, however, form its only suitability; for, on due consideration, it will be found to possess many very peculiar advantages for the operations of a triangulation.

"The general geological character of Spitzbergen is a group of islands of primitive rock, the ordinary hills of which are from 1000 to 2000 feet in height, commanding generally extensive views, and unencumbered with the vegetation which presents so great an obstacle to the connexion of stations in the more genial climates. The access to all parts of the interior is greatly facilitated by the extensive fiords, and arms of the sea, by which the land is intersected in so remarkable a manner: these, whether frozen over, as in the early part of the season, or open to navigation, as in the later months, form routes of communication suited to the safe conveyance of instruments either in sledges or in boats; the fiord, in particular, which separates the western and eastern divisions of Spitzbergen, would be of great avail; it extends in a due north and south direction for above 120 miles, with a breadth varying from ten to thirty miles, and communicates at its northern extremity, by a short passage across the land, with the head of another fiord proceeding to meet it from the northern shores of the island, and affording similar facilities for carrying on either a triangulation, or a direct measurement, on the surface

*

• Sledges with rein-deer trained to draft, and the Fins by whom they are managed, may be hired for the season, at Hammerfest, in any number that might be required. Spitzbergen abounds more in the food of the rein-deer, and is more plentifully stocked with the animals themselves in their wild state, than any other arctic country which I have visited. The Officers of the Griper killed more than fifty deer on the small islands which form the northern part of the harbour of Fairhaven.

of the ice at the level of the ocean. It is hardly necessary to add, that the latter operation would be unembarrassed by the inequalities of surface, and uncertain temperature of the apparatus, which occasion so much trouble, and require so much precaution in the usual determination of a base.

"The extent of the arc in the direction of the meridian, between the southern shores of Spitzbergen and the islands on its northern coast in the eighty-first degree of latitude, is between four and five degrees. At the period of the celebrity of Spitzbergen as a fishing station, in the middle of the seventeenth century, when above 200 vessels, manned by 10 or 12,000 seamen, annually resorted to its vicinity, and frequented its harbours for the purposes of boiling oil, and when the harbours were divided by convention amongst the vessels in consequence of their numbers, according to the nation and towns to which they belonged, all parts of the coast were known to and visited by the hardy and enterprising Dutch and German seamen, by whom the fishery was then principally conducted. The whales have long since deserted the haunts which their kind had enjoyed for ages before in unmolested security, and have sought retreats less accessible to man; the graves, which occupy every level spot around the harbours, contain the only and in that climate the almost imperishable memorials of the once busy scene, which has reverted to its original solitude; even. the accidental presence of a whaling ship in the western harbours is an event of rare occurrence*, and it is probable that more than half a century has elapsed since any vessel has passed to the North-eastern shores; it is not surprising, therefore, that the delineation of land, represented in the charts of the period when Spitzbergen was so greatly frequented as existing to the East of the seven islands, and to extend in a northerly direction far into the eighty-second parallel, should neither have been established nor disproved by modern authorities; those persons who have had opportunities of becoming acquainted, by examination on the spot, with the remarkable correctness of the older charts in general, in the insertion and in the relative position (when not separated by much extent of ocean) of lands then recently discovered, will hesitate too hastily to reject their testimony, until it has been satisfactorily disproved; should land exist as represented in the charts of the period alluded to, even though not visible from

* During the Griper's stay of three weeks in the neighbourhood of the harbour of principal resort in earlier times, and in the middle of the fishing season, not a single whale fish or whaling ship were seen. The only vessels which now frequent the shores of Spitzbergen, are Norwegian sloops in quest of sea-horses and eider down. Their visits have been hitherto confined to the fiords and the islands on the southern and western coasts; they arrive early in March, and remain as late as November, making occasionally three voy ages in a season.

Spitzbergen, its triangular connexion might be established on the surface of the ice, and latitudes yet unattained be included in the operations of the survey; nor would it be safe to assign too confidently the northern limit of such operations even in the absence of land, in our present ignorance of the facilities which the ice itself may afford for their extension towards the pole.

The measurement of a portion of the meridian in the higher latitudes is, however, one of the many experimental inquiries, beyond the reach of individual means to accomplish, for which the advancement of natural knowledge is delayed; if its accomplish. ment may be hoped for by that nation which has been most forward in exploring the regions of the north,-to whom its climates and its natural difficulties are familiar,-it must still await the existence of a channel in one of the departments of the state, through which the liberal disposition of the British Government to forward every undertaking worthy of a great nation, and by which it may occupy an additional page in history, shall be rendéred available to other branches of scientific research, than those which are immediately conducive to the interests of navigation.→→ p. 360-364.

There can be no question that the measurement of an arc of the meridian of Spitzbergen, of sufficient magnitude to render inconsequential the irregularities in the direction of gravitation at its extremities, (and such would be an arc of 4 or 5 degrees,) would be one of the most important, as well as one of the most splendid, of those enterprises for the advancement of general knowledge, which from time to time have received the support of enlightened governments, and have commanded the admiration of all civilized nations. To those persons, to whom the climates of the North, and the difficulties presented by its icy seas and barren shores, are not as familiar as they are to our author, the natural impediments to the accomplishment of such an undertaking, may appear in a more serious light than they are viewed by him, who has had experience of the means by which they may be surmounted, and has himself proved that such extreme situations are not incompatible with the utmost accuracy of experi But we do not hesitate to say that the attempt, even if it should terminate in demonstrating the impracticability of accom➡ plishment, would do honour to the government and the country,

ment.

We are happy to have it in our power to state, that the proposed measurement of an arc at Spitzbergen, was brought under the notice of the President and Council of the Royal Society, previously to the last recess; and that the propriety of recommending to the Government an undertaking so important to the advancement of natural knowledge, is now under consideration.Editor.

by which it should be made; and, that there is no country so competent to the undertaking as Great Britain; nor any time so suitable as the present; when the experience which she has gained in her northern voyages, (which have long since ceased to have any more important practical object in view than the acqui sition of such experience, and the cultivation generally of a spirit of enterprise,) may be most advantageously applied in the attainment of a purpose, of the highest rank in the advancement of science, and in the general interest of which, the nations of every quarter of the globe, and of all succeeding periods will participate. It is time that Great Britain, pre-eminent as she is in commercial enterprise, and in that of maritime and geographical" discovery, with wealth at command, and a government welldisposed to "forward every undertaking worthy of a great nation, and by which it may occupy an additional page in history," should assert a like pre-eminence, (which she does not at present possess,) in enterprises of a higher character, than the mere tracing' the direction of a river, or the completion of the outline of distant, and for any useful purpose, unprofitable shores.

We proceed to notice, and we shall do so as briefly as possible," the bearing of Captain Sabine's experiments upon the application! of the pendulum as a standard of measure, and upon the experi ments which are previously considered to have referred the British linear scale to a definite length in nature. It is in this relation that we consider his work as entitled to the greatest attention, because the pendulum furnishes in all probability the only natural standard of measure that is invariable, determinate, and easily determinable, and as such it has become the subject of legislative enactments, having been adopted in an act passed in the session of 1824, and referred to as the means of identifying the authentic legal scale of Great Britain: there can be no doubt however, after the perusal of Captain Sabine's remarks, in pages 364 to 372, that the provision made by the act is inadequate for the purpose; and there cannot be a stronger evidence of the importance of more consideration being devoted to the subject, than that the provision of an act, designed expressly for the most distant posterity, should thus be shewn to be incompetent to its purpose, even before the act itself has arrived in operation. The act declares the British imperial yard to bear a certain proportion to the "pendulum vibrating seconds of mean time in the latitude of London, in a vacuum at the level of the sea." It neces-i sarily assumes, consequently, 1st. That the length in nature so referred to, is of an uniform magnitude, and 2d, Not only that it has been measured, but that all future measurements must conduct to an identical result.

With respect to the first point, the experiments that are contained in the present volume shew conclusively that the latitude