DEGREE MEASUREMENT EXPEDITION:
The measuring instruments
The measurements
The measurement sites
base line
Tornio
Kaakamavaara
Nivavaara
Huitaperi
Aavasaksa
Horilankero
Pullinki
Niemivaara
Kittisvaara

Kittisvaara

The Kittisvaara fell was chosen despite the fact it was relatively low. The Pullinki fell was visible from the Kittisvaara fell. It became the northernmost fell in the measurement chain because north of it no suitable fells in the vicinity were visible.

Kittisvaara, 1st August 1736
On the second we determined therefore on constructing signal on the highest part of Kittis; we caused all the trees to be felled which might hinder the fight of it from Pullingi, and the mountains which we saw to the S.E.
(Outhier, Journal of a voyage to the north 1736-1737, p. 285)

Kittisvaara (Saukkola), 1st August 1736:
In the house of Saukola we should have been much nearer to Mount Kittis ; but it belonged to a poor man who had not a single room fit for us…
M. Camus bought this cotta then, and had it taken to pieces, and afterwards carried and put together again on the mountain, where it served as an observatory to place the sextant in, and to take the distances of some stars from the zenith.
(Outhier, Journal of a voyage to the north 1736-1737, p. 296)

Three kinds of measurements were made in Kittisvaara and Tornio.
1. A gravity pendulum was used to measure pendulum times by comparing them to the pendulum times of a second pendulum. In this way the magnitude of gravity was measured.
2. Measurements of the constellation Eagle were made by a stationary telescope.
3. The height of a star in the constellation Dragon was measured by the sector.

Kittisvaara, 1st August 1736:
The weather was still cold, and although cloudy, it never failed to freeze at night. Thursday, the fourth, it was more mild, and very fine, and at night we made our observations as well as we could desire : M. de Maupertuis, M.Camus, and myself, that on the bright part of the Eagle with the fixed telescope ; and Messrs. Clairaut, Le Monnier, and Celsius, that on the star of the Dragon, with the sextant…

At the sextant we always observed three together, and not every day the three same persons : one counted the pendulum, and another attended to the micrometer, while the person observing through the telescope moved it backward or forward by the micrometer without looking it, before he saw the star cut by the thread of the telescope, and pass through its whole scope. (Outhier, Journal of a voyage to the north 1736-1737, p. 300)

Kittisvaara, picture by Outhier

Kittisvaara