万物简史 第61期:事物的测定(19)

As for Mason and Dixon, they returned to England asscientific heroes and, for reasons unknown,dissolved their partnership. Considering thefrequency with which they turn up at seminalevents in eighteenth-century science, remarkablylittle is known about either man. No likenesses existand few written references.

梅森和狄克逊回到英国，成了科学上的英雄;但是，不知什么原因，他们的伙伴关系却无可挽回地破裂了。考虑到他们经常出现在18世纪的重大科学活动中，对这两个人的情况知道得如此之少，这是很引人注目的。没有照片，极少文字资料。

Of Dixon the Dictionary of National Biography notes intriguingly that he was "said to have beenborn in a coal mine," but then leaves it to the reader's imagination to supply a plausibleexplanatory circumstance, and adds that he died at Durham in 1777. Apart from his nameand long association with Mason, nothing more is known.

关于狄克逊，《英国人名词典》巧妙地提到，他"据说生在煤矿里"，然后让读者去发挥自己的想像力，提供合理的解释。《词典》接着说，他1777年死于达勒姆。除了他的名字和他与梅森的长期伙伴关系以外，别的一无所知。

Mason is only slightly less shadowy. We know that in 1772, at Maskelyne's behest, he acceptedthe commission to find a suitable mountain for the gravitational deflection experiment, atlength reporting back that the mountain they needed was in the central Scottish Highlands,just above Loch Tay, and was called Schiehallion.

关于梅森的情况，资料稍多一点。我们知道，1772年，他应马斯基林的请求，奉命寻找一座山，供测量引力偏差之用;最后，他发回报告，他们需要的山位于苏格兰高地中部，就在泰湖那里，名叫斯希哈林山。

Nothing, however, would induce him to spend a summer surveying it. He never returned to thefield again. His next known movement was in 1786 when, abruptly and mysteriously, heturned up in Philadelphia with his wife and eight children, apparently on the verge ofdestitution. He had not been back to America since completing his survey there eighteenyears earlier and had no known reason for being there, or any friends or patrons to greet him. Afew weeks later he was dead.

然而，他怎么也不肯花一个夏天来对它进行测量。他再也没有回到现场。人们知道，他的下一个活动是在1786年。他突然神秘地带着他的妻子和8个孩子出现在费城，显然穷困潦倒，令人惨不忍睹。他18年前完成测量工作以后没有回过美洲，这次回来没有明显的理由，也没有朋友或资助人迎接他。几个星期以后，他死了。