Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Volume 186, Pts. 1-2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 Excerpt: ...to the table lands of the Himalayas, and also at islands in the ocean and points on the coast lines; they have been connected with pendulum observations in England, Russia, and America. Full details of the principal operations of the Survey, as completed as a whole for all India, and finally reduced, are given in the " Accounts of the Operations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey," which are published in the Survey Office at Dehra Dun, in Northern India. These volumes give the measurements of the base-lines and of the principal angles, the astronomical latitudes, the electro-telegraphic longitudes, and the pendulum determinations; they also show the steps which have been taken to make the triangulation consistent throughout with the smallest possible disturbance of the facts of observation, and they give the final results which have been obtained in each instance. Of these volumes, sixteen have now been published in large quarto, the first appearing in 1870. They contain both the work which has been done by the Survey as a contribution to geodesy, as well as what has been executed as a basis for the topography of India. But they are thick, bulky volumes, and are not very readily accessible, though they have been widely distributed to public libraries. The results of the geodetic operations may, however, be summarized and capitulated in a comparatively small space; it seems desirable that this should be done, in order to place them within convenient reach of all mathematicians wishing to investigate the figure of the earth. I have therefore extracted from the published volumes all that is of essential importance in relation to geodesy, and added to it several latitude determinations which I have recently received from the Survey and which have not...