Classics in Geodesy from the 18th & 19th Centuries

  From the measurement of meridional arcs by the French in the early part of the 18th Century it became evident that the Earth was not a perfect sphere but an oblate spheroid instead. It took about 150 years to get accurate values for the equatorial and polar radii of an ellipsoid to represent the figure of the Earth. Here are some of the classic works on the development of modern geodesy.

1720  Cassini, De la Grandeur de la Terre

1738  Maupertuis, La Figure de la Terre (in English)

1740  Picard, Degre du Meridien

1743 Clairaut, Theorie de la Figure de la Terre

1749  Bouguer, La Figure de la Terre

1805  Biot, Traite elementaire d'astronomie physique (in English)

1826  Airy, Figure of the Earth

1830  Everest, Measurement of an Arc of the Meridian

1830  Airy, Figure of the Earth

1841  Bessel, Ueber einen Fehler und der Figur der Erde

1847  Everest, The Meridional Arc of India, Vol. 1, Vol. 2

1858  Clarke, Principal Triangulation, GB Ordinance Survey

1866  Clarke, Figure of the Earth

The 18th Century French units of length may be helpful with the earlier works.