There seemed to be a spate of books a few years back with a noun, followed by a subtitle that made a claim to greatness (“a world history” or “the fish that changed the world”). Nicholas Crane, who presented documentaries like ‘Coast’ or ‘Great British Journeys’, takes a similar approach in the title to his book. In this case, though, there is an element of truth, as the significance of latitude is that it does tell us the shape of the world, and in the 1700’s that was a big question. They knew that the earth wasn’t a perfect sphere, but was it stretched at the poles, or as Isaac Newton suggested, did it bulge out in the middle? To answer the question, the French government dispatched two expeditions, one to the Arctic Circle led by Maupertuis in 1735, and another to South America that same year, in order to compare results. Latitude is the story of the South American expedition.
In 1735 South America was part of Spain’s colonial holdings. The Wars of Independence would not occur for another 90-odd years and South America had not been divided up into the countries that we know today. After a voyage that took them to Martinique, Saint-Domingue (now the benighted Haiti), Cartegena de Indias and Panama, they finally made land at Guayaquil and headed towards Quito in what is now Ecuador. There were ten men in the French Geodesic Mission to the Equator, attended by four servants. They were headed by three members of the French Academy: Bouger, La Condamine and Godin. They were supported by Jean-Joseph Verguin, the principal surveyor, Jean-Louis de Morainville, an artist, a clockmaker technician, Theodore Hugo (whose role became increasingly important as their equipment faltered) and Joseph de Jussieu, doctor and botanist. The three final men in the French contingent were “a mixed bag of mates and favours” (p.11) – cousins, nephews of friends, a surgeon. However, having a French expedition on Spanish land was diplomatically tricky so, in order to encourage Spain’s co-operation, the French government offered services in measuring the longitude and latitude of key locations on the coast of Peru and the inclusion of “two intelligent Spaniards”. They were Jorge Juan y Santacilia and Antonio de Ulloa and de la Torre-Guiral, both graduates of the Academy of Navy Guards and trained in mathematics, astronomy, navigation, trigonometry, cartography and firearms. (p. 17)
There were lots of egos in amongst this group, and several of them were curious scientists who were perfectly happy to go off on frolics of their own to undertake their own experiments. The expedition split up, came together, split up again as personalities grated and egos clashed. Their main purpose was to undertake a geodesic survey which, despite Crane’s best efforts, I never really quite understood (don’t bother explaining it to me- I really don’t care). I gather that it involved the placement of triangles on high peaks with a clear sight line between them, measuring, then lots of computation. This tied in with astronomical surveys as well, undertaken using a zenith sector which required the observer to lie on the floor beneath the eyepiece of an immensely long, precisely aligned telescope erected in an observatory with a hole in the roof and a pendulum clock on the wall. There were also experiments about the speed of sound which I didn’t quite understand.
The trouble was that these high peaks were the Andes, with all the attendant perils of altitude sickness, frostbite, avalanche etc. There was a lot of scaling mountains, completely dependent on indigenous porters (as colonial mountain-expeditions always are )and the scientists were typically boorish in their dismissal of local knowledge about safe altitude levels. The triangles could be erected, then knocked down by wind or snow, requiring them to be put in place again. They took readings, but found discrepancies and so would repeat the measurements again, adding year after year to their expedition. Meanwhile they continually ran out of money, got involved in a brawl that led to murder, and they seriously insulted the Spanish contingent.
And what did they have to show for it, ten years later? Well, not all the men returned, but those who did not only proved Newton right, but they also undertook ground-breaking research on rubber and malaria, completed the first detailed survey of an Inca site, described platinum, took thousands of measurements and made thousands of botanical observations. But, as the final chapter which wraps up ‘what happened next’, several of them seemed infected by travel-restlessness (a pre-existing condition which had probably prompted them to go on the expedition in the first place), while others returned to France to die of amoebic dysentery, experimental hernia surgery (always the scientist), falling from scaffolding repairing a church or just old age.
This book is told in a rollicking narrative style, and the different characters are well-differentiated. What I couldn’t understand though, is why a book about geography, written by a geographer, had only two maps with minuscule writing located at the front of the book. I was flipping back and forth constantly, squinting trying to read the writing on the map. If only there had been legible maps tracing their journey placed appropriately within the text, I am sure that I would have followed their voyage more easily. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable read which demonstrates both men’s (because they were all men) endurance and determination, and their selfishness, self-aggrandizement and inability to work together for ten whole years.
My rating: 7.5
Sourced from: Yarra Plenty Regional Library. And why?- a beautiful cover and it looked interesting.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 