| Description | He gives thanks to Kater for the pains he has taken in directing the making of instruments to ascertain the values of Swedish weights and measures, and advising on the methodology and results. Their proceedings have been printed by the Royal Academy of Sciences. He does not trust his own English to describe his work, but Kater will be able to find someone in London to do so. He gives a brief account of the results for pendulum vibration and length; the absolute weight of distilled water in Swedish weights and measures; and a cubic inch at standard temperature in a vacuum. He moves on to instruments, before discussing his interest in physical astronomy. He sends a paper on terrestrial and astronomical refractions, citing the work of Thomas Simpson and James Bradley, and discusses atmospheric temperatures. He thinks a set of experiments for determining the law of elastic fluids would be valuable, describing how these might be accomplished. He refers to the work of [Stephen] Groombridge in the Philosophical Transactions, and papers by [Basil] Hall and [John] Goldingham. He longs for the latest observations from Hammerfest, Northcape and elsewhere. He refers to Kater's paper on the floating collimator and discusses this. In a postscript, he asks to requisition a troy pound. |