additional importance, by being joined to the British triangulations. This series of operations, begun by General Roy, and continued after him by Colonel Mudge, was prolonged from the south of England to the north of Scotland, and in that extent presented many degrees of the meridian, measured with excellent instruments. But England, being a little to the west of the French arc, there was ground to fear lest all the terrestrial meridians not being exactly alike, the difference of longitude would affect the results obtained from the junction. The measurements of the pendulum, however, were much less liable to be disturbed by any slight irregularities of the figure of the earth.-The Board of Longitude was desirous that the same apparatus which had served for these measurements in France and Spain should be employed over the whole extent of the English arc. The cordial co-operation of the scientific characters in Britain, and the countenance of the government, were of course given to this great operation. Sir Joseph Banks and Sir Charles Blagden, having assured the French board of all possible facilities in this country, M. Lainé, the minister of the interior, furnished the means for this enterprize, and the Board of Longitude entrusted M. Biot with the execution of it.

The circumstances of the visit paid by this eminent man, on an occasion so conspicuous in the annals of science, cannot fail to interest every intelligent person in those parts of England, Scotland, and Shetland, which were honoured with his presence. The handsome and delicate manner in which M. Biot relates the particulars of his journey, forces us to cherish with the greater pleasure the feelings of reverence due to his character, and awaken a personal af

fection, which in the most pleasing manner mingles itself with these general sentiments.

M. Biot left Paris in the beginning of May, 1817, carrying with him the same apparatus which he had used on the other points of the meridian,—a repeating circle, by M. Fontin, an astronomical clock, and chronometers, by M. Breguet, and every thing else that the observations required. By the interest of Sir Joseph Banks, the baggage was landed at Dover, and carefully brought to London, free from duty, and, what is of greater importance, from all that vexatious inspection which is, in ordinary cases, attached to the present system for collecting the revenue; and which is most especially chilling, when the implements of science are subjected to it. When he came to Edinburgh, Colonel Mudge, and Colonel Elphinston, commandant of the military engineers, afforded him every assistance possible. He went along with CoIonel Mudge to the battery of Leith, where his first station was fixed. For erecting his circle, he constructed on the terrace of the Fort a portable observatory, which, being easily taken to pieces at pleasure, enabled him to make observations on all sides of the horizon. That the apparatus of the pendulum might be fixed with solidity, stones of great weight were fixed in thick walls with iron chains. At this period, M. Biot wisely determined not to indulge in the interesting observations which were continually suggested by every surrounding object, in a country which he had never before visited, till he had finished the minute labours in which his duties had engaged him, on the subject of weights, lengths, and measures. Having finished his observations at Leith, his next object was to repeat them in the Orkneys, the extreme limit of the English arc.

required but time and perseverance. Captain Mudge, however, beginning to suffer in his health from the climate, embraced an opportunity of return ing to the south, by a whaler which passed on her return from Spitzbergen. But native resources for the assistance of the philosopher were soon discovered in this place. As the working of the repeating circle required two persons, the one to follow the star, and the other to mark the indications of the level, Mr Edmonstone suggested the employment of a young carpenter, who could not only write and cypher very well (these qualifications being here matters of course,) but had given proofs of particular intelligence and address in setting up the observatory. M. Biot, simplifying his task as much as possible, gave him some lessons previously to the departure of Captain Mudge. This person performed his part with the greatest fidelity. "On no account whatever," says M. Biot, even to satisfy my impatience to observe, would he admit my results to be good, before they were strictly within the condition which I had prescribed to him, that is, before the bubble of the level was in a state of perfect immobility." He soon learned to acquit himself in a manner completely satisfactory. Yet M. Biot had, among the numbers which the carpenter wrote, certain relations which would have shewn him his errors, if he had committed any, This sometimes happened in the commencement; and the carpenter was always much surprised at his being able to detect and correct a mistake which he had not seen made. But, at the end of three days, he became sufficiently expert to make no more errors. In the course of two months, M. Biot, with these means at his disposal, succeeded in collecting 38 series of the pendulum,

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each of five or six hours,-1400 observations of the latitude, in 55 series, made both on the south and north of the zenith,-and about 1200 observations of the absolute heights of the sun and stars, to regulate the going of his clock. His exertions were almost exclusively confined to the labour of observing. He did not, in this place, calculate more than three or four observations, at great intervals from each other, in order to assure himself of their general rate, and guide him in the continuation of them, delaying the final calculation till his return to Paris. At the time of writing his Narrative, he had devoted much time to the calculations, but had not quite finished them; yet the agreement of those observations the calculations of which were completed, shewed the accuracy which may be expected from them. The results which are deduced from them, being combined with those of Formentera of the arc of France, give, for the flattening of the earth, exactly the same value which is deduced from the theory of the moon, and the measurement of the degrees compared at great distances. This perfect agreement between determinations so different shews at once the certainty of the result, and the sure method which science employs to obtain it. It is not without trouble that this point of precision has been reached. The variation of the length of the pendulum, by which the flattening is measured, is in all, from the equator to the pole, only four millimetres, that is, less than the fifth-part of an inch,—and from Formentera to the Isle of Unst, one millimetre and a half, or less than three-fortieths of an inch. It is these three-fortieths of an inch, however, which, appreciated as can now be done, exhibit and measure, even with great accuracy, the flattening of the whole terrestrial spheroid, and prove

to us, that, notwithstanding slight accidents of composition and arrangement which the exterior surface on which we move presents to us, the interior of the mass of our planet is composed of strata perfectly regular, and subjected to the laws of superposition, density, and form, which would have been assigned to them by a primitive state of fluidity.

After relating these labours, M. Biot makes some remarks on the scenes which passed in review before him on this occasion. He does not write like a pedantic, dry, mathema tical philosopher, exclusively attached to his particular department, but like a citizen of the world, who was interested in remarking the leading fea tures of the society into which he was thus casually introduced. His gratitude for the attentions which were paid to him, and his high respect for the scientific zeal of our learned men, and the honourable promptness of our government in the estimable cause, are expressed without exception, and without those notices of imperfections by which inferior minds delight to display their good taste, without looking forward to the noxious influence of such remarks in generating, on the one hand, feelings of paltry triumph, and, on the other, those of wounded self-love. Exceptions to the general success of our intended good usage, must, in the nature of things, have occurred. M. Biot, we understand, was brought from Shetland to Edinburgh in a heavy equinoxial gale, which accomplished the voyage in 50 hours. For the gale no set of human beings is accountable, but the vessel was poor,

and to an extreme degree the reverse of comfortable. This we could have wished to be otherwise, though we hear nothing of it from himself. But we speak it entre nous. It is a remark which the politeness of our continental neighbours will never permit them to translate into a foreign language. The strain of acute observation which M. Biot employs in explaining the happiness of the Shetlanders, makes us, in a few words, more intimately acquainted than we previously were with the character and state of these secluded neighbours.-No observation occurs on the state of inns of this country, on the qualities of the tea, the coffee, or the wines, set before him. Had he been ob. liged, on any occasion, to satisfy the cravings of nature with oatmeal porridge, we perceive that no fastidious or envious exclamations on the pretended coarseness of our favourite burgou would have escaped him. No graphic delineations of the individuals whom he met in Edinburgh are permittted to fall from his pen, for the gratification of vulgar curiosity; but he, in one or two interesting strokes, characterizes those leading features of society, which embrace all ranks, and terminate in the broad concerns of humanity. At the close of his trip, he returns exultingly into the bosom of his native France, affording a happy specimen of the comfortable fact that people in general love their own country better than any other, and can never love it the less for looking with a benignant eye on the most exotic scenes of human society.

THE direction of the national curiosity during this year was chiefly given by that distress and want which had been, and in some degree continued to be, deeply felt throughout Europe. The stagnation of all branches of industry, the multitude of people who had been thrown out of the occupations afforded by war, produced a large surplus population, some part of which could scarcely obtain a bare subsistence; while others could no longer enjoy those comforts and accommodations which habit had rendered necessary. At the same time, the great vicissitudes of the world had inspired a love of change and adventure, which made men not unwilling to seek a more auspicious lot, even in the rudest and most distant climates. In this situation the great western world opened, as it were, its arms to receive them. The American United States, though they still offered com

paratively high wages and cheap subsistence, could no longer be consider. ed as an unoccupied country. But beyond their boundary chain of the Alleghany, a passage had been recently opened, into that almost endless plain, which reaches westward across the continent; a tract comprising perhaps the greatest extent of fertile land, watered by the most magnificent rivers, any where to be found in the globe,but which, till lately, comprehended only

realms immense, and blooming wilds And fruitful deserts-worlds of solitude, Where the sun shone, and seasons teem'd in vain,

Unseen and unenjoy'd, but which was now fast covering with populousness and European art. This seat of a future mighty empire drew a continued train of adventurers from the eastern and already settled parts of the United States; it attracted, at