the measurement, 25″.09 less North, with respect to the southernmost point of Philadelphia, than Mr. Rittenhouse’s Observations had given it; and, in making these, he had no better Instrument than Sisson’s two-and-an half feet Quadrant. Nevertheless, the framer of the Report remarks, “as both were fixed by celestial observations and experienced Men, the small difference ought perhaps to be divided; and if a mean be taken, to reconcile it with the terrestrial measure, the Lat. of the south point of Philadelphia would be 39° 56′ 42″; and that of Norriton, 40° 9′ 43″.[130] ----- Footnote 127: Flamsted, Halley, Bradley and Bliss, successively occupied the royal observatory at Greenwich, from the time of its institution by Charles II.; and, in the year 1765, the last of these eminent men was succeeded in the place of Astronomer-Royal, by Nevil Maskelyne, B. D. a man who, in the words of the profound French astronomer, Lalande, “has sustained perfectly the reputation of that famous observatory.” The scientific world are indebted to this excellent practical astronomer for the publication of the Nautical Almanack; and, in a great measure, for the perfection of the lunar method of ascertaining the longitude at sea. “His unwearied exertions in this great cause of humanity and science,” as the compilers of the _New Edinburgh Encyclopedia_ (in the article _Astronomy_) observe, “entitle him to the gratitude of the remotest posterity.” Footnote 128: It appears that the difference of the meridians of the Greenwich and Paris Observatories, is 9′ 20″ as assumed by Lalande. This was ascertained by the result of the measurement of the distance between those Observatories, made sometime about the year 1786 or 1787, under the sanction of the British and French governments, respectively; and this difference of meridians corresponds with what Dr. Maskelyne had before stated it to be. The last mentioned astronomer shewed, in 1787, that the latitude of Greenwich is 51° 28′ 40″. Footnote 129: In relation to Paris, Mr. Lalande calculates the longitude of Philadelphia at 5^h 9′ 56″, according to Mr. Rittenhouse; and its latitude, as being 39° 5′7 10. Footnote 130: In Mr. Rittenhouse’s “Delineation of the Transit,” &c. published in the first volume of the Philosophical Society’s Transactions, it appears that he assumed the latitude of the Norriton Observatory to be 40° 9′ 56″. -----