seldom equalled in a single year in any field. These
observations were of great service to the astronomers,
as they afforded the opportunity of comparing the stars
of the southern hemisphere with those of the northern,
which were being observed simultaneously by Lelande
at Berlin.

Lacaille's observations followed closely upon the
determination of an absorbing question which occupied
the attention of the astronomers in the
early part of the century. This question was as
to the shape of the earth--whether it was actually
flattened at the poles. To settle this question once
for all the Academy of Sciences decided to make the
actual measurement of the length of two degrees, one
as near the pole as possible, the other at the equator.
Accordingly, three astronomers, Godin, Bouguer, and
La Condamine, made the journey to a spot on the
equator in Peru, while four astronomers, Camus,
Clairaut, Maupertuis, and Lemonnier, made a voyage
to a place selected in Lapland. The result of these
expeditions was the determination that the globe is
oblately spheroidal.

A great contemporary and fellow-countryman of
Lacaille was Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783),
who, although not primarily an astronomer, did so much
with his mathematical calculations to aid that science
that his name is closely connected with its progress
during the eighteenth century. D'Alembert, who