Note 55 — DEVELOPMENT OF GRAVITY PENDULUMS IN THE 19th CENTURY

Carolyn Eisele, “Charles S. Peirce—Nineteenth-Century Man of Science,” Scripta Mathematica (1959), vol 24, p. 305. For the account of the work of Peirce, the authors are greatly indebted to this pioneer paper on Peirce’s work on gravity. It is worth noting that the history of pendulum work in North America goes back to the celebrated Mason and Dixon, who made observations of “the going rate of a clock” at “the forks of the river Brandiwine in Pennsylvania,” in 1766-67. These observations were published in Phil. Trans. (1768), vol. 58, pp. 329-335.