441. If the preceding conclusions are just, and if the figure of equilibrium is only an asymptotic figure, to which that of the earth may approximate, but cannot perfectly attain, we are not to be surprised if considerable deviations from it are actually observed. This has accordingly happened, insomuch, that the results deduced from the most accurate measurement of degrees of the meridian, differ from one another, in the oblateness they give to the earth, by nearly one half of the quantity to be determined. When we compare the degrees measured in France, and in some other countries of Europe, with those measured in Peru, we obtain for the compression at the poles, less than 1/300 of the radius of the earth. But when we compare the degrees measured in France with one another, and with those lately measured in England, we find that they are best represented by a spheroid that has its compression 1/150 of its semi-axis.[233] There is reason to think, therefore, that the meridians are not elliptical; and other observations seem to show, that they are not even similar to one another; or that the earth is not, strictly speaking, a solid of revolution; so, also, the comparison of the degree measured at the Cape of Good Hope, with those measured on the opposite side of the equator, creates a suspicion, that the northern and southern hemispheres are not perfectly alike, and that the earth is not equally compressed at the Arctic and the Antarctic poles. These irregularities, though they do not affect the general fact of the earth's compression at the poles, show that the true statical figure is but imperfectly attained; and though this may be accounted for, without having recourse to the principles involved in our theory, it is in a manner very unsatisfactory, and, by help of suppositions, not at all consistent with the original fluidity ascribed to the whole mass, or to the exterior crust of the earth. [Footnote 233: Exposition du Systéme du Monde, par La Place, p. 61, 2d edit.] 442. As the principles here laid down explain how a solid body may attain very nearly the figure which a fluid would acquire in order to preserve its parts in equilibrium; and since the oblate figure belongs to other of the planets as well as the earth, and the globular to all the great bodies of the universe, this suggests an analogy that goes deep into the economy of nature, and extends far beyond the limits within which the mineralogist is wont to confine his speculations.