French Geodesic Mission
The French Geodesic Mission (also called the Geodesic Mission to Peru, Geodesic Mission to the Equator and the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission) was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador carried out for the purpose of measuring the roundness of the Earth and measuring the length of a degree of longitude at the Equator. The mission was one of the first geodesic (or geodetic) missions carried out under modern scientific principles, and the first major international scientific expedition.
Background
In the 18th century, there was significant debate in the scientific community, specifically in the French Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences), as to whether the circumference of the Earth was greater around the Equator or around the poles. French astronomer Jacques Cassini held to the view that the polar circumference was greater. Louis XV, the King of France and the Academy sent two expeditions to determine the answer: one was sent to Lapland, close to the North Pole, under Swedish physicist Anders Celsius and French mathematician Pierre Maupertuis. The other mission was sent to Ecuador, at the Equator. Previous accurate measurements had been taken in Paris by Cassini and others.
Expedition
The equatorial mission was led by French astronomers Charles Marie de La Condamine, Pierre Bouguer, Louis Godin and Spanish geographers Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa. They were accompanied by several assistants, including the naturalist Joseph de Jussieu and Louis's cousin Jean Godin. La Condamine was joined in his journey down the Amazon by Ecuadoran geographer and topographer Pedro Maldonado. (Maldonado later traveled to Europe to continue his scientific work.)
- Note: In the 18th century the nation of Ecuador did not yet exist. The area was under Spanish control and was called the Territory of Quito after the city of Quito. The fame brought to the region by the French Geodesic Mission influenced the adoption of the name, Republic of Ecuador when the country gained independence in 1830.
The Ecuadoran expedition left France in May 1735. They landed on the Caribbean coast in Colombia, sailed to Panama where they traveled overland to the Pacific, then sailed to Ecuador. In Ecuador, they split into two groups, traveling overland through rainforests, arriving in Quito in June 1736.
Bouguer, La Condamine, Godin and their colleagues measured arcs of the Earth’s curvature on the Equator from the plains near Quito to the southern city of Cuenca. These measurements enabled the first accurate determination of the size of the Earth, eventually leading to the establishment of the international metric system of measurement.
They completed their survey measurements by 1739, measuring the length of a meridian arc of three degrees at the Equator. They did this in spite of earlier news that the expedition to Lapland led by Maupertuis had already finished their work and had proven that the Earth is oblate, i.e., flattened at the poles. However, problems with astronomical observations kept them in Ecuador several more years.
Bouguer returned first from the expedition, going overland to the Caribbean and then to France. La Condamine, along with Maldonado, returned by way of the Amazon River. Godin took a position as professor in Lima, where he helped rebuild the city after the devastating 1746 earthquake, and returned to Europe in 1751. Bouguer, La Condamine and the Spanish officers each wrote separate accounts of the expedition, which opened up European eyes to the exotic landscapes, flora and fauna of South America, and led directly to the great naturalist expeditions by Alexander von Humboldt and others.
Observations during the mission
- Ulloa and Juan visited the architectural Inca complex in San Agustin de Callo and subsequently wrote a descriptive document of what they observed at the ruins. Ulloa made a drawing of the ruins.[1]
Expedition members first came across rubber tapping (and thus rubber), the identification of the correct types of cinchona tree that produce the active form of quinine (anti-malarial agent) and the development of what became the Metric System for units of measure.
Subsequent mission
In the late 19th century, the Academy of Sciences sent another mission to Ecuador at the behest of the International Association of Geodesy to confirm the results of the First Geodesic Mission and commemorate the relationship between the two republics. This second mission was led by Captain E. Maurain and several other military personnel during its tenure in Ecuador from 1901-1906. The only two members of the French mission to spend the entire time in Ecuador were Lieutenant (later General) Georges Perrier and medical officer Paul Rivet, later an important anthropologist and founder of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.
Publications
- Relación histórica del viaje a la América meridional, Jorge Juan and Ulloa, 1748
- Figure de la terre determine, Bouguer, 1749
- Journal du voyage, La Condamine, 1751
- Le procès des étoiles 1735–1771 ASIN: B0000DTZN6
- Le Procès des étoiles ASIN: B0014LXB6O
- Le procès des étoiles 1735–1771 ISBN 9782232118623
- LES PROCES DES ETOILES, 1735–1771 ISBN 9782232101762
Monument
A reproduction of the pyramids that marked the baseline for measurement at Yaruqui (which was destroyed by Quito authorities in the 1740s) was erected in 1836, the centennial of the expedition, by the Rocafuerte administration of the nascent republic of Ecuador. This monument fell into disrepair over the next century but was rebuilt in 1936, minus its original French inscription, for the bicentennial of the first geodesic expedition along with a second pyramid at San Antonio de Pichincha on the equator. These monuments still exist today. The new Quito international airport will open in the Yaruqui valley in 2011 and will include a mural celebrating the Geodesic Mission.
In 1936, the French American Committee of Ecuador sponsored the idea of the Ecuadoran geographer Dr. Luis Tufiño and raised a monument commemorating the bicentennial of the arrival of the First Geodesic Mission. They raised a 10-meter-high monument at Mitad del Mundo in San Antonio de Pichincha, in Pichincha Province of Ecuador. However, there is no record that the Mission ever visited the area. Moreover, the monument bears a suspicious resemblance to a fictitious pyramid in Frederic Edwin Church's painting "Cayambe" rather than to any actual Ecuadorian site.
See also
Sources
- Larrie D. Ferreiro (2011): Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition that Reshaped Our World (New York: Basic Books) ISBN:9780465017232
- Mitad del Mundo Half of the World: First Geodesic Mission
- “Geography”, by David A. Neill
- Jacques Cassini
- Jacques Cassini
- History of San Agustin de Callo
- Historic Cultural and Scientific Expeditions to Equator and Ecuador...
- Historical Brief Description of the Middle of the World and Its Monument
- BBC Video. Voyages of Discovery: Figure of the Earth. (Part 1 of 2)
- BBC Video. Voyages of Discovery: Figure of the Earth. (Part 2 of 2)
References
