Development of Gravity Pendulums in the 19th Century / Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, Papers 34-44 On Science and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, 1966

by Victor F. Lenzen; Robert P. Multhauf

[75] Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1889-90 (Washington, 1891), app. no. 12.

[76] Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1881-82 (Washington, 1883).

[77] Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (1856), vol. 9, part 2, p. 8. Also published in Mathematical and Physical Papers (Cambridge, 1901), vol. 3, p. 1.

[78] Peirce’s comparison of theory and experiment is discussed in a report on the Peirce memoir by William Ferrel, dated October 19, 1890, Martinsburg, West Virginia. U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Special Reports, 1887-1891 (MS, National Archives, Washington).

[79] The stations at which observations were conducted with the Peirce pendulums are recorded in the reports of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1881 to 1890.

[80] Comptes-rendus de l’Académie des Sciences (Paris, 1880), vol. 90, p. 1401. Hervé Faye’s report, dated June 21, 1880, is in the same Comptes-rendus, p. 1463.

[81] Commandant C. Defforges, “Sur l’Intensité absolue de la pesanteur,” Journal de Physique (1888), vol. 17, pp. 239, 347, 455. See also, Defforges, “Observations du pendule,” Mémorial du Dépôt général de la Guerre (Paris, 1894), vol. 15. In the latter work, Defforges described a pendulum “reversible inversable,” which he declared to be truly invariable and therefore appropriate for relative determinations. The knives remained fixed to the pendulums, and the effect of interchanging knives was obtained by interchanging weights within the pendulum tube.

[82] Papers by Maj. von Sterneck in Mitteilungen des K. u. K. Militär-geographischen Instituts, Wien, 1882-87; see, in particular, vol. 7 (1887).

[83] T. C. Mendenhall, “Determinations of Gravity with the New Half-Second Pendulum ...,” Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1890-91 (Washington, 1892), part 2, pp. 503-564.

[84] W. H. Burger, “The Measurement of the Flexure of Pendulum Supports with the Interferometer,” Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1909-10 (Washington, 1911), app. no. 6.