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Concept
French Geodesic Mission to the Equator
Summary
The French Geodesic Mission to the Equator (Expédition géodésique française en Équateur), also called the French Geodesic Mission to Peru and the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission, was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador carried out for the purpose of performing an arc measurement, measuring the length of a degree of latitude near the Equator, by which the Earth radius can be inferred. The mission was one of the first geodesic (or geodetic) missions carried out under modern scientific principles, and the first major international scientific expedition.
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 of France and the academy sent two expeditions to determine the answer: one was sent to Meänmaa in Lapland, close to the Arctic Circle, 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.
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.)
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, and continued by sail to Ecuador, then called the Territory of Quito by Spain. In Ecuador, they split into two groups, traveling overland through rain forests, arriving in Quito in June 1736.
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