Kater's pendulum minutes per day slower than at Paris, or equivalently the length of a pendulum with a swing of one second there was 1¼ Paris "lines", or 2.6 mm, shorter than at Paris. It was realized by the scientists of the day, and proven by Isaac Newton in 1687, that this was due to the fact that the Earth was not a perfect sphere but slightly oblate; it was thicker at the equator because of the Earth's rotation. Since the surface was farther from the Earth's center at Cayenne than at Paris, gravity was weaker there. Since that time pendulums began
SS City of Manchester (1851) SS City of Manchester (1851) The SS "City of Manchester" was an iron-hulled single screw liner built 1851 by Tod & McGregor, Glasgow, Scotland and the second such ship owned by the Inman Line (officially the Liverpool and Philadelphia Steam Ship Company). It was an improved version of their first ship "City of Glasgow" which had been launched a year earlier. Steerage passengers were carried beginning in 1852. The "City of Manchester" was chartered to the French government during the Crimean War, and resumed Inman voyages in 1856. She departed London for Calcutta 24 August 1857 as a transport as