Lot n° 216
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Jean-Baptiste BIOT (1774-1862) mathematician, physicist and - Lot 216
Jean-Baptiste BIOT (1774-1862) mathematician, physicist and astronomer. Partially autograph manuscript, La Mola de Formentera, [1807]; 8 pages in-fol.
Working manuscript of this study on the measurement of the arc of the meridian, during his mission with Arago, on an island of the Balearic Islands.
Between 1806 and 1808, two French astronomers, Jean-Baptiste Biot and François Arago, were sent to Spain in order to complete the measurements of the arc of the terrestrial meridian started by Delambre and Méchain. After triangulating the Spanish coasts, 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 gives details of their observations; mainly in Biot's hand, it presents erasures and corrections.
"Formentera is a small island located about twenty-five minutes south of the island of Yvice [Ibiza]. We had not thought at first of pushing the end of the arc to this point, and even this could not have been done directly, if we had left the station of Yvice on the mountain of Los Masons, where Méchain had planned to place it. Formentera is not visible from this mountain. But those of us who went to prepare the signals in the island of Yvice, soon recognized the possibility of joining this island to Formentera by a triangle whose third summit would be at Mongo on the coast of Spain, and it was this consideration, as well as the advantage of choosing a higher mountain in Yvice, that determined us to substitute the mountain of Campvey for Los Masons. The station of Formentera 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 the distances to the zenith (based on the Campvey and Mongo lampposts) as well as the angles of position between the lampposts. Comments specify the conditions of observations: reception of the 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).
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