Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-09-29
A SIMPLE AND DELICATE OPERA
TIoN JUST FINISHED AT PROV
INCEToWS, CONNECTING HAssA-
CHUsETTs AND WISCONSIN IN A
MEASURED ARC.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass, September %.
Roughly speaking, the longitude
as well as the latitude-of every town
and village on the map has been ascer-
tanned. AS a matter OF fact, however,
in the whole United States less than
200 pIaces-of which Cambridge,
where the dome of the Harvard OBJ
seryatory appropriately marks the
true meriden, was the first-aIe To-
Gated with astronomical precision.
Eighteen OF these are the starting
points from which the true longtitudes
of the other places in the list have
been determined. These Is stations,
on which all others depend, together
constitute great system-worked out
station by station by the United states
Coast and Geodetie Survey-whieh is
known as the Longitude net of the
United States" The method by which
this met" has been established was de-
veloped by the United States Survey,
with the assistance of the Harvard Cd
servatory Immediately after the inVen-
ton of the telegraph had made the
undertaking possible. The present
accuracy of the system, however, was
not possible until the Atlantic cable,
some 80 years ago. had brought Green
which the zero or starting point OF all
longitudinal measurement, in direct
connection with some point in this
country. This noint was naturally the
Harvard Observatory, as being the
nearest important astronomical station
on this side of the water. and the con
nection thus established between Cam
bridge and Greenwich is still the link
on which the validity of the whole net,
including such widely separated points
as Washington. Key West, Mime
apolis, Omaha, San Francisco. New Or
leans, Galveston, or Calais, Maine, de-
ponds.
It will be seen, however, that no ore
station of the net is superior to the
others as a standard meridian, al
though the distinction is sometimes
accorded to Washington. At first, of
course the Harvard Observatory IVES
the only standard in this country, be-
cause at that time no other meridl9n
had been so accurately determined;
and it is historically OF importance as
being the foundation of the whole sys-
tenn as now accepted. But the govern
ment. when it Is necessary to locate
exactly some town whose position on
the map is only approximate, takes the
nearest point in the longitude net as
it's basis of reference For this reason
and not because it was the prim"ry
point in the systematic CAMBRIDGE
observatory has recently been made
the basis for determining the true
longitude of ProVincetown, at the end
of Cape Cod by a series of observa-
lions which are interesting, not on y
as an example of the Geographic
method by which all such work is con-
Quoted, but as a step in the working
out of an extensive geodetic problem.
At first glance the determination or
the exact longitude of Provincetown,
and later of the latitude,-whieh is OBJ
tanned on the spot, without reference
to any other place.-would seem to be
of local rather then national import
ance. In reality however, the loca-
ton which it already had was quite
sufficient for all needs of its own. The
purpose of the survey was to make the
little Cape Cod town one end of a
great arc, crossing more than :. third
of the continent and ending, probably,
at Fennimore, in Grant county, Wis