The Figure of the Earth: an Introduction to Geodesy

Abstract

THE author of this volume has already made his name known to us as the writer of an excellent treatise on the Method of Least Squares. The book before us presents to the reader, who is supposed to have some little knowledge of Algebra and Geometry, an explanatory and historical sketch of the labours of geodesists from the earliest days. We read in Chapter I. that Anaximander—a speculator in Geometry, Astronomy, and other sciences—concluded, from some reasons best known to himself, that the earth was a cylinder whose height is three times its diameter. There must have been some good reason for this idea, for we are told that Anaxagoras held the same. And it is scarcely to be wondered at that Plato originated some views of his own in the matter.

The Figure of the Earth: an Introduction to Geodesy.

By Mansfield Merriman. (New York, 1881.)