Commemorative plaque 59558

This blue commemorative plaque records: In the summer of 1774 the Reverend Nevil Maskelyne FRS, Astronomer Royal, set up observatories on either side of Schiehallion to measure by how much plumblines would be pulled out of the vertical towards the mountain by the gravitational force due to its mass, at the time, this was called 'The Attraction of Mountains', in effect, it became the first determination of Newton's Universal Gravitational Constant. The mountain was surveyed by Reuben Burrow of the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The calculations were made by the mathematician Charles Hutton FRS, during which he was the first to use land surface contour lines, now universally employed in map making. This plaque was set up by the Royal Society of London and the Royal Astronomical Society in 1982, the 250th anniversary of Maskelyne's birth.

Reverend Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, conducted pioneering experiments on Schiehallion in 1774 to measure gravitational force, leading to the first determination of Newton's Universal Gravitational Constant. Charles Hutton, a mathematician involved in these calculations, was the first to use land surface contour lines, which are now standard in map making.