Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
jungles of West African near Benin. In addition, it was impractical to think of an
expedition to the East Indies since an expedition would have to penetrate into areas
inhabited by war-like savages. The Academy therefore negotiated with Spain to
send an expedition into Peru (the area now known as Ecuador) in South America.
When Maupertuis added that a second expedition north towards the pole was
needed, it was even more impossible to make the measurements of the scale of the
degree of latitude along the Paris Meridian since the Meridian passes from Dunkerque
into the North Sea and east of England and between Scotland and Norway never
touching land before it terminates at the North Pole. Visiting Paris in 1734, Anders
Celsius (1701-1744), professor of astronomy at Uppsala in Sweden, whose name is
remembered in the naming of the centigrade temperature scale, may have suggested
that the expedition (1734-37) was sent north to the Arctic Circle to Sweden and into
Lapland. A second expedition followed and was sent south towards the Equator to
Peru (1735-1744).
THE NORTHERN EXPEDITION was led by Maupertuis into the Gulf of Bothnia,
the northern extension of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland.
A portrait by Robert Tournières made on Maupertuis' return shows him dressed as
a Laplander with fur hat, leaning on a globe at the poles and flattening it. The picture
is labeled as follows: “It was his destiny to determine the shape of the world.” In
the engraving he is also pictured being pulled by a reindeer in a sled. The picture is
fanciful and not as authentic as it looks, but it showed how Maupertuis wanted to
present himself - as an adventurer, mathematician, explorer, and man of action.
Maupertuis was supported by Celsius who not only was an able mathematician,
astronomer and essential part of the science team but also the liaison between the
expedition and the Swedish authorities, on whose territory the work had to be done.
The northern team also included the astronomers Alexis Clairaut and Pierre Le
Monnier with assistance from Abbé Réginald Outhier, Charles-Etienne-Louis
Camus and Anders Hellant (1717-1789), the expedition's interpreter who was
brought up in Lapland. The expedition drew attention to what had been up to that
point, and perhaps one could argue it still remains, one of the less visited parts of
the world. The published journals of Maupertuis (1738) and Outhier (1744) made
Lapland life and customs better known.
People
Pierre Le Monnier (1715-1799)
Born into a distinguished family, Pierre Le Monnier was an astronomer and member of the
Academy of Sciences from an early age. As a young man he worked on the theory of the
orbit of the Sun, made an elaborate map of the Moon and observed the 1731 opposition of
Saturn. In 1735 he joined Clairaut and Maupertuis on their expedition to Lapland to meas-
ure the meridian there. A youthful and vigorous man, he was able to contribute in large
degree to the success of the scientific measurements. He not only participated in the sur-
veying measurements and the triangulation process to establish the scale of a degree at that
latitude in the north, but also worked to identify the effects of the atmosphere on the meas-
urements. He returned to Paris and began a study of the orbit of the Moon, and he supervised
the construction of the
meridiana
in the more civilized environment of the Church of St
Sulpice (see Chapter 4). In addition to his many activities, Monnier constructed a transit
instrument for the Paris Observatory and observed an eclipse of the Sun from Scotland.
