Description
Jean-Baptiste BIOT (1774-1862) mathematician, physicist and astronomer. Partially autograph manuscript, La Mola de Formentera, [1807]; 8pages in-fol. Working manuscript of this study on the measurement of the arc of the meridian, during his mission with Arago on a Balearic island.Between 1806 and 1808, two French astronomers, Jean-Baptiste Biot and François Arago, were sent to Spain to complete the measurements of the arc of the terrestrial meridian begun by Delambre and Méchain. After triangulating the Spanish coastline, they continued their work on the island of Formentera, one of the four main Balearic islands, located 6 km south of Ibiza. The present manuscript details their observations; mainly in Biot's hand, it contains erasures and corrections."Formentera is a small isle about twenty-five minutes south of the isle of Yvice [Ibiza]. At first, we didn't think of pushing the end of the arc that far, and we couldn't even have done it directly, if we had left the Yvice station on the Los Masons mountain, where Méchain had planned to place it. Formentera is not visible from this mountain. But those of us who went to prepare the signals on the isle of Yvice soon recognized the possibility of joining this isle to Formentera by a triangle whose third vertex would be at Mongo on the Spanish coast, and it was this consideration, as much as the advantage of choosing a higher mountain in Yvice, that determined us to substitute the mountain of Campvey for Los Masons. The Formentera station was established on a plateau about two hundred meters high"... Once the station was set up, the two astronomers began their observations, which lasted from April 19 to 28, 1807. The text contains zenith distances (based on the Campvey and Mongo lampposts) and position angles between the lampposts. Comments explain the observation conditions: reception of light signals, clouds, fog, temperature, atmospheric pressure....Text published in BIOT (J.-B.) and ARAGO (F.), Recueil d'observations géodésiques, astronomiques et physiques (Paris, Ve Courcier, 1821, pp. 170 -177).
42
Jean-Baptiste BIOT (1774-1862) mathematician, physicist and astronomer. Partially autograph manuscript, La Mola de Formentera, [1807]; 8pages in-fol. Working manuscript of this study on the measurement of the arc of the meridian, during his mission with Arago on a Balearic island.Between 1806 and 1808, two French astronomers, Jean-Baptiste Biot and François Arago, were sent to Spain to complete the measurements of the arc of the terrestrial meridian begun by Delambre and Méchain. After triangulating the Spanish coastline, they continued their work on the island of Formentera, one of the four main Balearic islands, located 6 km south of Ibiza. The present manuscript details their observations; mainly in Biot's hand, it contains erasures and corrections."Formentera is a small isle about twenty-five minutes south of the isle of Yvice [Ibiza]. At first, we didn't think of pushing the end of the arc that far, and we couldn't even have done it directly, if we had left the Yvice station on the Los Masons mountain, where Méchain had planned to place it. Formentera is not visible from this mountain. But those of us who went to prepare the signals on the isle of Yvice soon recognized the possibility of joining this isle to Formentera by a triangle whose third vertex would be at Mongo on the Spanish coast, and it was this consideration, as much as the advantage of choosing a higher mountain in Yvice, that determined us to substitute the mountain of Campvey for Los Masons. The Formentera station was established on a plateau about two hundred meters high"... Once the station was set up, the two astronomers began their observations, which lasted from April 19 to 28, 1807. The text contains zenith distances (based on the Campvey and Mongo lampposts) and position angles between the lampposts. Comments explain the observation conditions: reception of light signals, clouds, fog, temperature, atmospheric pressure....Text published in BIOT (J.-B.) and ARAGO (F.), Recueil d'observations géodésiques, astronomiques et physiques (Paris, Ve Courcier, 1821, pp. 170 -177).
You may also like
