“For the determination of the longitude of Valencia, which was carried out in this year, various methods were discussed, but the plan of sending chronometers by mail conveyance was finally approved.  From London to Liverpool the chronometers were conveyed by the railways, from Liverpool to Kingstown by steamer, from Dublin to Tralee by the Mail Coaches, from Tralee to Cahersiveen by car, from Cahersiveen to Knightstown by boat, and from Knightstown to the station on the hill the box was carried like a sedan-chair.  There were numerous other arrangements, and all succeeded perfectly without a failure of any kind.  Thirty pocket chronometers traversed the line between Greenwich and Kingstown about twenty-two times, and that between Kingstown and Valencia twenty times.  The chronometrical longitudes of Liverpool Observatory, Kingstown Station, and Valencia Station are 12m 0.05s, 24m 31.17s, 41m 23.25s; the geodetic longitudes, computed from elements which I published long ago in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, are 12m 0.34s, 24m 31.47s, 41m 23.06s.  It appears from this that the elements to which I have alluded represent the form of the Earth here as nearly as is possible.  On the whole, I think it probable that this is the best arc of parallel that has ever been measured.

“With regard to the Maine Boundary:  on May 7th Col.  Estcourt, the British Commissioner, wrote to me describing the perfect success of following out my plan:  the line of 64 miles was cut by directions laid out at the two ends, and the cuttings met within 341 feet.  The country through which this line was to pass is described as surpassing in its difficulties the conception of any European.  It consists of impervious forests, steep ravines, and dismal swamps.  A survey for the line was impossible, and a tentative process would have broken the spirit of the best men.  I therefore arranged a plan of operations founded on a determination of the absolute latitudes and the difference of longitudes of the two extremities.  The difference of longitudes was determined by the transfer of chronometers by the very circuitous route from one extremity to the other; and it was necessary to divide the whole arc into four parts, and to add a small part by measure and bearing.  When this was finished, the azimuths of the line for the two ends were computed, and marks were laid off for starting with the line from both ends.  One party, after cutting more than forty-two miles through the woods, were agreeably surprised, on the brow of a hill, at seeing directly before them a gap in the woods on the next line of hill; it opened gradually, and proved to be the line of the opposite party.  On continuing the lines till they passed abreast of each other, their distance was found to be 341 feet.  To form an estimate of the magnitude of this error, it is to be observed that it implies an error of only a quarter of a second of time in the difference of longitudes; and that it is only one-third (or nearly so) of the