Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14998

    Diagram from Jean Picard's Mesure dela Terre (1671)

    Date
    9 January 1672
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    LBC
    Manuscript page number
    vol5 p118a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 421mm
    width (page): 297mm
    Subject
    Description
    Diagram from Jean Picard's Mesure dela Terre (1671), plate 2, which Francis Vernon reviewed in his letter to Henry Oldenburg dated 9 January 1672, Paris. Vernon's letter was read at the meeting of the Royal Society on 11 January 1672, and published as a review in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 10, no. 112 (1675).

    This was copied from LBO/5/104a.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 11 January 1672, ‘Mr. Oldenburg read a letter to him by Mr. Vernon from Paris, January 9, 1671/2, describing the method observed by Mons. Picart in measuring the earth, whereby it appeared, that he assigned 57060 Parisian toises or fathoms, numero rotundo, to a degree, or seventy-three English miles, reckoning five thousand feet a mile’ (Birch 3:3).

    Tab. 1, figs 1-3 in Jean Picard, 'Account of the measure of Earth', Phil. Trans. vol. 10, no. 112 (March 1675), pp, 261-72 (ref to figs 1 to 3 at pp. 266, 271-72). The figures for Phil. Trans. are copied from J. Picard, Mesure de la terre (Paris, 1671), plate 2.
    Related fellows
    Francis Vernon (1632 - 1677, British) , Traveller, Traveller
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > France
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