Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
During the winter in Torino, the expedition members played hard and, it seems,
loved well, but they also worked. For example, they made observations of a pendulum
and found that the pendulum they had brought from Paris accelerated 59 seconds
per day at that latitude. They reduced their data and found, to their astonishment,
that the length of a degree at this location, on the Arctic Circle, was getting on for
about 1000 toises more than the Cassinis had calculated by extrapolating their
results over the latitude difference of France. This was so unexpectedly large that
Maupertuis felt some of the observations had to be verified in the spring. The geo-
detic surveys had been observed many times by several independent persons and
Maupertuis had caused measurements to be made of all three angles of some trian-
gles. The three angles have to add to 180°, and they did, so Maupertuis was confi-
dent of the triangulation. The party re-measured the star positions and the latitude
of the two extremities, and there was apparently no mistake - the length of a degree
of latitude at the Arctic Circle was 57,438 toises, 377 toises longer than Picard had
measured. As it later transpired, they had reason to doubt the size of the proof that
the Earth was flat at the poles.
As would be natural within a scientific expedition, the party took great interest
in the curiosities of their up-to-then largely unexplored environment. Maupertuis
described the aurora:
When I look into the sky there is a fabulous spectacle. Fires of a thousand different colors
light it up, making ripples like drapes across the sky… It is from such explorations that we
will understand the Universe.
As they prepared to depart Torino in April 1737, the party took time out to visit
the Käymäjärvi Inscriptions, a stone engraved with an undeciphered runic inscrip-
tion, located near Lake Käymäjärvi. Maupertuis later gave an account of the stone
to the Academy. The expedition left Lapland early in June as the ice broke up leaving
the sea clear to sail.
The expedition to Lapland was not simply uncomfortable it was extremely dan-
gerous. Le Monnier fell ill during the winter and Maupertuis' health was perma-
nently damaged. The expedition was shipwrecked in the Baltic Ocean on the return
journey. The wind got up soon after they had weighed anchor and the ship took in
water. They tried to bail out and pump it dry by throwing the cargo of wood over-
board to get more clearance above the surface of the sea. These efforts were not
successful and after three futile days of this labor, the pilot carefully ran the boat
aground. The party salvaged the papers and the instruments (although they were
damaged by immersion in sea-water) but no lives were lost. It took a week to repair
the boat, but they continued their journey on to Denmark and through the Low
Countries back to France.
MAUPERTUIS RETURNED to Paris in August 1737. He had sent nothing of his
results ahead, and the Academy was eager to hear them, convening a meeting on
the 28th of August for this purpose. It caused a sensation, and the news that the
Earth was flattened as Newton had calculated spread immediately from the
Academy into Paris, to the rest of France and to England. The Cartesians were in
consternation at the information and the Newtonians jubilant. Mairan indignantly
