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10 OUTHIER’s JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO THE NORTH.
3
as though it was about to fplit in every direGtion. Tuefday evening the weather was
milder, it fnowed and fpoiled all the roads, greatly retarding our return. We were
however under no apprehenfions of miftaking our road, becaufe it was marked by
trees on one fide and the other. We traced the fame road we came by. ‘The road
upon the river was perfectly fafe except over the cataracts. Above Waojenna and
through a good part of its current, there was a confiderable fpace not frozen from
which.continually a prodigious quantity of vapor arofe, thrown up by the impetuous
motion of the water. We arrived at ten o’clock at ‘Torneo: we made our report on
the ftate in which we found the ice and fnow, and the next day, Thurfday the thirteenth,
in the morning, it was refolved to go and meafure. We prepared every thing necef-
fary for this work, and every one made his individual arrangements.
M. Camus and myfelf departed, Friday the fourteenth, at nine in the morning, to
adjuft the rods with which we were to meafure, and trace the line of the bafe. Meflrs.
Helant and Herbelot came with us; we had five fledges, in which we took a quadrant
and fome neceflary inftruments, thermometers, files, mallets, and feveral iron works
for our meafures. We arrived a little after eight o’clock at the houfe of M. Brunius,
where we found one room fhort of our former accommodation ; his fifter-in-law, wife
of the chaplain of Torneo was on a vifitto him. We managed as well as we could, I
had my bed with me, which I laid on a large table.
Saturday the fifteenth, and Sunday the fixteenth there was dull weather, and it
fnowed occafionally. Monday the feventeenth the weather was fine; we went to look
about the courfe of the bafe; on the eighteenth we began to fix flakes, and continued
our work on Tuefday. Meffrs. de Maupertuis, Clairaut, Monnier, Celfius, and Som-
mereux, arrived the fame day, and Tuefday we were all aflembled together at the houfe
of Mr. Brunius.
We had brought from Paris an iron toife well adjufted, by that of Chatelet, with a
ftandard of iron as well, into which the toife exatly entered. Both one and the other
were adjufted at Paris, at a time that the thermometers were 24° above o. of Reaumur.
Wednefday the nineteenth, we kept them in a chamber of the fame temperament by
means of a good fire. We made five toifes of fir, which we armed at each of their
extremities with a large round headed nail, filing it away till the toife exaétly fitted the
ftandard. We carried our precifion fo far that a fheet of paper could not enter be-
tween the meafures and the ftandard. While we were adjuiting the toifes, beds were
prepared for us, and J ceafed from keeping mine on the table.
Thurfday the twentieth, while M. de Monnier, and fome others continued fixin
{takes along the bafe, Meflrs. Camus and mytelf, with the five toifes which we had ad-
jufted the day before, had fafhioned eight long fir rods of the length of five toifes each.
We made for this purpofe a fortof long ftandard. We fixed in the apartment a large
nail, and another in the porch, at a diftance fome trifle fhort of five toifes, we placed
fupports in a line, forming a kind of fcaffold from one nail to another, we ranged along
them our five toifes end to end very carefully. We then drove our two nails apart, and
filed away from them juft enough to allow of the five toifes, when they were clofely joined
at their ends to enter between them; the nails being driven mto the wooden walls of
the houfe. It was between thefe two large nails that we adjufted our eight rods, as ex-
aétly as poflible of the length of thirty feet. We proved the length of the five wooden
toifes, and afterwards the diftance of thirty feet, between the two large nails.
We made ready on Friday the twenty-firft to begin our meafurement from the
northern fignal. Asa great deal of fnow had fallen, eight machines were prepared to
élear the road for thofe who meafured : they were large logs of woods faftened together
mm
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