Show TO MEASURE THE EARTHS GIRTH Attempt to Determine a Mooted Question of Thousands of Years I The computers of the coast and geodetic geo-detic survey will take up within a few months a huge mathematical problem from which they are expected to determine deter-mine more accurately than has ever been done before the distance around the world The results will be of great importance to scientists of all countries and will be awaited with interest by those who would like to know whether this terrestrial ball on which we live is really larger or smaller than it is supposed sup-posed to be The measurements of the surveyors from which this information is to be compiled are now almost completed com-pleted The task is one of great magnitude and will require from two to three years of solid mathematical grinding such as would turn the majority of students stu-dents pale Many men have worked over this ground before and it has long been supposed that the person who circumvented cir-cumvented the globe covered a distance of about 24000 miles or that If he could drop from the Icy pinnacle of the north pole to a similar location in the Southern I South-ern hemisphere he would descend through onethird of this amount of space The scientists have long ceased however to be satisfied with an expression ex-pression of miles and furlongs for these distances and are striving to obtain a correct measurement in feet Mr An drew Braid executive officer of the coast and goedetic survey recently sale that he believed the distance would eventually be computed that the error er-ror in the diameter would not exceed fifty feet The most recent authorities differ much with each other The two whose I conclusions are accepted FriedrIch W Bessel a distinguished German astronomer astron-omer and Colonel A R Clarke an English engineer are at variance with each other about the diameter to the extent of one mile and during the las thirty years since the results of Colonel Clarke were promulgated the surveyors survey-ors of different countries have been divided di-vided against themselves on this ques tionAccording According to Astronomer Bessels ctmputatians which were given to the world in 1811 the distance from pole to pole is 41707308 feet while the longer dl < amptr from one side of the equator to the Jobber is 41846194 Colonel ClaTKef coTdspanding figiures announced I an-nounced In 1866 from measurements ta ken in India wuiich are accepted by I Amenioang generally are 41709790 feet and 41852401 feet The preparation for this mammoth undertaking of the mathematical men of itihe survey requires the actual measurement meas-urement of tae longest possible dis tcnce en the earths surface This is I I what is tschniosilly > called an arc be j I cause it comprises a portion of the I I eaTtlhs circumference The surveyors will soon hiav an arc of 3000 miles in I length extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean which tbs been de termined with precision by the use of I t She most accurate instTUmemts and the employment of the most > skilled men I I This line is along the thirtyninth par = aaeJ and will be completed with the system < > of triangulation tihrough wlhat I Is called the continental divide the II piesanit season The principle ifctr determining < the I circumference of the earth in hIs l case I is easy of comprehension The surveyors survey-ors are able to determine the difference I in Icngtjbude of the two extremities of I 1 this long line which begins in New Jersey near the southern part of Cape I May and ends in the lower part of Mendodno county Cal Knowing that the whole circumference cir-cumference of the earth comprises com-prises 300 degrees of a circle and reckoning reck-oning the fractional pant of this circle cir-cle which is covered by the arc the whole distance is readily computed The difficulty comes in reducing the observations taken from the series of triangles extending across the continent conti-nent to a sea level for many of the lines from which the distance must be measured are situated on the mountain I l tope and in some cases above the clouds especially in the mountain 13 region of the west through which the parallel passes The measurement of the eanGis circumference is to be ac comp ls hed incidentally to the other work for which the triangulation Is designed and therefore the final results re-sults will not be obtained for a considerable consid-erable time In more primitive times men made many attempts to ascertain the dim n sions of the globe A Frenchman named Fernel court physician to Henry II in the early part of the sixteenth teenth century had an ingeniuos but crude scheme for measuring With a wagon wheel which would have been facilitated by the use of the modern cyclometer He traveled due north from Paris to Amiens what he calculated ated to be a degree and returning by I the country roads counted the revolu dons Of his wagon wheel to the number num-ber of 17024 These amounted to sixty I eight Italian miles and ninetysix paces according to his computations and in multiplying this by 360 he believed lieved that he had the approximate distance dis-tance around the world He was not far from the truth but his rude methods meth-ods would come far short of satisfying the exacting demands of science in these times He supposed that the earth was round and took no account of the wObbling in and out of the road or the inevitable curvature of the path of the wheel from a straight line The ancients however were fully is shrewd as Fernel and more than 2300 years before his time they arrived at the same results by methods equally clever The Chaldeans worked on the problem and reckoned by camel steps They had it that 4000 camel steps were necessary to make a mile and that 333 miles were onehalf of a degree From this they declared that it was 21000 miles around the world Achilles the old Grecian warrior who fought befor Troy appears to have been amiss in his information on this subject for he is quoted as saying that a good walker could go around the earth in a solar year The Egyptians had a scheme for measuring the earth by the length T of the shadows probably those cast by their obelisks the principle of whirh was the same as that of the sun dial This was accomplished by ascertaining the location of two places due north and south where the length of shadows at noon showed a difference of one d ° gree They then measured this space and multiplied the result by 360 In connection with their triangula tinn the sure or ft ft u uu TVjwikj cA c attempting to learn what Is the exact shape of the continent through which their labor extend This has a great deal to di with a correct computation of the dis tance around or through the earth In fact they know that the earth is far from being what they call Clarjos spheroid That is the present scientifi name for the earth since the American surveyors concluded that Coi Clarkes dimensions were most nearly correct A large part of the North American continent bulges out abnormally like a rubber ball which Is squeezed by a strong hand This is one of the things that puzzle the wise men The great western plateau is elevated above the level of equilibrium probably more than 10000 feet on an average The theory is that the mass of the earth is I thoroughly viscous but this immense r plateau weighing bullions and billions lof tons is supported in some manner at the great height when on general principles It should sink down to the level of the sea On the contrary the great plateau Is probably rising and plumb bobs and pendulums which are utilized in reaching conclusions on these subjects often put scientific theories to flight |