At
Marseille I saw M. Gambart and the Observatory, and passed by Avignon,
Lyons, and Nevers to Orleans, where I visited my old host
M. Legarde. Thence by Paris, Beauvais, and Calais to London and
Cambridge, where I arrived on the 30th October. I had started with
more than _L140_ and returned with _2s. 6d_. The expedition was in
many ways invaluable to me.
"On my return I found various letters from scientific men: some
approving of my method for the mass of the Moon: some approving highly
of my printed observations, especially D. Gilbert, who informed me
that they had produced good effect (I believe at Greenwich), and
Herschel.--On Nov. 13th I gave the Royal Astronomical Society a Paper
about deducing the mass of the Moon from observations of Venus: on
Nov. 16th a Paper to the Cambridge Philosophical Society on a
correction to the length of a ball-pendulum: and on Dec. 14th a Paper
on certain conditions under which perpetual motion is possible.--The
engravings for my Figure of the Earth in the Encyclopaedia
Metropolitana were dispatched at the end of the year. Some of the
Paper (perhaps much) was written after my return from the
Continent.--I began, but never finished, a Paper on the form of the
Earth supposed to be projecting at middle latitudes.
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