President John Quincy Adams was a man of knowledge and a man of science. He believed that the federal government had a constitutional right to promote science. In his first State of the Union address, he expanded on the constitutional words "the establishment of an uniform standard of weights and measures" to include both the geography of the earth and astronomy. In his first year as President, he marveled at the unceasing "inquiries and speculations" of Great Britain and France that expanded into profound and expensive research programs. In his first State of the Union address, Adams described the work of Sir Edward Sabine, a member of the Royal Society of London, to measure the forces of gravity in various places as indicated by the swinging of a pendulum. He pondered whether it would be an honor to our country if the next sequel of this work could be sponsored by the federal government.
From 1821 until 1823, Sir Sabine traveled to numerous places between the equator and Spitzbergoten vibrating a pendulum and measuring the comparative length in seconds. By measuring the length of the pendulum swing the "oblateness" or degree to which the shape of the earth departs from a perfect sphere. The earth is actually an oblate sphere flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator; it is not a perfect sphere, and understanding the "figure of Earth" is required for precise measurements used in navigation and surveying. Sabine collected results over an area of eighty degrees of latitude and the results were published in four large volumes by the Board of Longitude. Sabine's work represented the most accurate assessment of the figure of the earth that had ever been made, and earned hims the Lalaude Gold Medal from the Institut de France.
Adams was aware of this work and stated that some of these volumes "recently been made on our own shores, within the walls of one of our own colleges, and partly by one of our own fellow citizens". Adams did not mention which citizen that was, but perhaps it was either Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. Both had interests in longitudinal studies. Thomas Jefferson had done numerous studies of longitudinal sciences. Once in 1811, Jefferson took advantaged of an annual eclipse of the sun to do some calculating of his own longitude at Monticello. With the help of James Madison and his stepson Payne Todd along with two time keepers and observing instruments prepared themselves, but due to a faulty timepiece they reached their appointed stations with too little time to properly adjust the instruments. Nevertheless, they persevered and for the next three hours carefully charged the behavior of the moon and the sun. With their measurements and calculations from an astronomical calculator in Washington, Jefferson pronounced that Monticello's longitude to be to be 78° 35' — about 8 minutes (and 8 miles) over the correct 78° 27' west of Greenwich. In 1825, President Adams thought it would be an honor to our country if the next sequel of Sabine's work to be paid for by the U.S. Government just as France and Great Britain had done.
"The establishment of an uniform standard of weights and measures was one of the specific objects contemplated in the formation of our Constitution, and to fix that standard was on of the powers delegated by express terms in that instrument to Congress. The Governments of Great Britain and France have scarcely ceased to be occupied with inquiries and speculations on the same subject since the existence of our Constitution, and with them it has expanded into profound, laborious, and expensive researches into the figure of the earth and the comparative length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in various latitudes from the equator to the pole. These researches have resulted in the composition and publication of several works highly interesting to the cause of science. The experiments are yet in the process of performance. Some of them have recently been made on our own shores, within the walls of one of our own colleges, and partly by one of our own fellow citizens. It would be honorable to our country if the sequel of the same experiments should be countenanced by the patronage of our Government, as they have hitherto been by those of France and Britain."
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). John Quincy Adams: First Annual Message. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29467 [Accessed 11 Feb. 2018].American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Records of the Academy. (1884). Proceedings Of The American Academy Of Arts And Sciences, v. 12. [Place of publication not identified]: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Metcalf and Company, pp.560-561.
En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Edward Sabine. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Sabine [Accessed 11 Feb. 2018].
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