Method to discover the difference of the earth's diameters; proving its
true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to 46, and shortest in
its pole's axis 174 miles.... likewise a method for fixing an universal
standard for weights and measures. By Thomas Williams.[380] London,
1788, 8vo.
Mr. Williams was a paradoxer in his day, and proposed what was, no doubt,
laughed at by some. He proposed the sort of plan which the
French--independently of course--carried into effect a few years after. He
would have the 52d degree of latitude divided into 100,000 parts and each
part a geographical yard. The geographical ton was to be the cube of a
geographical yard filled with sea-water taken some leagues from land. All
multiples and sub-divisions were to be decimal.
I was beginning to look up those who had made similar proposals, when a
learned article on the proposal of a {172} metrical system came under my
eye in the _Times_ of Sept. 15, 1863. The author cites Mouton,[381] who
would have the minute of a degree divided into 10,000 _virgulae_; James
Cassini,[382] whose foot was to be six thousandths of a minute; and
Paucton,[383] whose foot was the 400,000th of a degree. I have verified the
first and third statements; surely the second ought to be the
_six-thousandth_.
An inquiry into the Copernican system ... wherein it is proved, in the
clearest manner, that the earth has only her diurnal motion ... with an
attempt to point out the only true way whereby mankind can receive any
real benefit from the study of the heavenly bodies. By John
Cunningham.[384] London, 1789, 8vo.
The "true way" appears to be the treatment of heaven and earth as
emblematical of the Trinity.
Cosmology. An inquiry into the cause of what is called gravitation or
attraction, in which the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the
preservation and operations of all nature, are deduced from an
universal principle of efflux and reflux. By T. Vivian,[385] vicar of
Cornwood, Devon. Bath, 1792, 12mo.
{173}
Attraction, an influx of matter to the sun; centrifugal force, the solar
rays; cohesion, the pressure of the atmosphere. The confusion about
centrifugal _force_, so called, as demanding an external agent, is very
common.