While it was important for geodesy, from a Cambridge point of view its introduction to the syllabus of the Tripos, as intended by William Whewell, proved troublesome.
John Henry Pratt in Mathematical Principles of Mechanical Philosophy (1836) returned to the topic, clarifying it.
Then in 1839 Gaskin produced a solution procedure by a differential operator method, setting the result of his investigation as a Tripos question.
[6] Gaskin published little original mathematics by the conventional route of the learned journal; but made his research public in Tripos questions (he was an examiner six times between 1835 and 1851).
Later Edward Routh commented on the extensive adoption of Gaskin's problems into the common fund of understanding of the subject.