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Updated: June 7, 2025
In their Annual Letters is to be found a quantity of information, which even in the present day retains a real interest, as concerning regions so long closed against Europeans. In Cochin China and Tonkin, Father Tachard devoted himself to astronomical observations, of which the result was to prove by the most conclusive evidence the great errors in the longitudes given by Ptolemy.
The Marquis de Laplace, peer of France, one of the forty of the French Academy, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Bureau des Longitudes, an associate of all the great Academies or Scientific Societies of Europe, was born at Beaumont-en-Auge of parents belonging to the class of small farmers, on the 28th of March, 1749; he died on the 5th of March, 1827.
The old one Ta-lao-ye, that is to say, a person well advanced in years is incessantly turning over the pages of his book. This volume, a small 32mo, looks like our Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, and is covered in plush, like a breviary, and when it is shut its covers are kept in place by an elastic band.
An erroneous calculation of longitudes confirmed him in the belief that the Moluccas, as well as the Philippines, properly belonged to Spain. Meanwhile in these Philippines of themselves he had discovered a region of no small commercial importance.
After having ascertained the latitudes and longitudes of a great many places, he proposed to draw up a catalogue of terrestial latitudes and longitudes, but this he was not able to accomplish: he had set the example, however and it was followed by subsequent astronomers. He fixed on the Fortunate Islands, which are supposed to be the Canaries, for his first meridian.
We may, therefore, hope that all commercial nations will, before long, refer their longitudes to one and the same meridian, and the resulting confusion be thus avoided. The preparation of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac was commenced in 1849, under the superintendence of the late Rear-Admiral, then Lieutenant, Charles Henry Davis.
The calculations made at the Bureau of Longitudes concerning population authorize us again to subtract from the total mentioned two millions of young girls, pretty enough to kill; they are at present in the A B C of life and innocently play with other children, without dreading that these little hobbledehoys, who now make them laugh, will one day make them weep.
The period of one of these inequalities is 273 years, and that of the other is 239 years. The maximum value of the former is 27".4, and that of the latter is 23".2. Translator. This law is necessarily included in the law already enunciated by the author relative to the mean longitudes.
There is a doubtful position of a sunken rock, ten miles West 1/2 North of the south point, which is low and rocky, and in latitude 40 degrees 10 minutes South, longitude 143 degrees 58 minutes East; whilst Cape Wickham is in latitude 39 degrees 35 minutes South, longitude 143 degrees 59 1/2 minutes, East; and Cape Otway in latitude 38 degrees 51 minutes South, longitude 143 degrees 35 1/2 minutes East of Greenwich, considering Sydney, to which these longitudes refer, to be in 151 degrees 16 minutes East.
At any rate this confession was a frank one, and the same frankness characterized the replies from the observatory of Montsouris and the magnetic station in the park of St. Maur. The same respect for the truth distinguished the Bureau des Longitudes. The provinces were slightly more affirmative.
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