Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
was a practical man, curious, and even an entrepreneur; he opened a trading post in
Quito for silk and lace when it turned out that the drawing rights he could access
provided limited money. Godin progressively withdrew from both Bouguer and La
Condamine and associated only with the Spaniards, working in secret. Allied with
neither side, the Spaniards were able to keep the expedition together. When the
expedition drew to a close, though, Godin was to stay behind in Lima to teach.
When the Academy, examining the chaotic finances of the expedition, came to
suspect embezzlement, Godin's decision not to return to France looked
suspicious.
At that time, the city of Quito was the inland capital of the province of Quito,
now the capital city of Ecuador. On the Yarouqui plain near Quito, the expedition
laid out the fundamental baseline of 6,300 toises by hacking away the scrub in a
straight line between two end markers. They measured the baseline with three-toise
standard wooden measuring rods, made of wood tipped with copper so they could
be butted accurately together. One group led by Bouguer, La Condamine and Ulloa,
measured in one direction and the other led by Godin and Juan measured in the
opposite direction; their measurements differed by only 8 centimeters. They then
surveyed Ecuador along its north-south running mountain range extending over 3°
of latitude and more than 300 km from Quito in the north to Tarqui in the south.
They laid out a check baseline of 6196.3 toises near Tarqui, part of it measured
across a shallow pool with the standard rods floating on the surface. They were
gratified to find that it disagreed with their triangulation of the same distance by
only 0.2 toise (40 cm).
Out in the field making their measurements, triangulating from mountain to
mountain, the scientists braved hostile and dishonest natives, snakes, scorpions,
and mosquitoes, in addition to freezing deserts and active volcanoes (Bouguer
complained at one station that “sleep was continually interrupted by the roaring of
the volcano,” a “frightful noise”). Weather conditions in the mountains were par-
ticularly difficult because the peaks were often shrouded in mist, making it impos-
sible to see from one mountain triangulation station to the others. Overnight the
scientists were sometimes frozen into their huts by snowfall blocking the doors
and had to rely on visits by their native assistants to break them free from the
outside. Even worse were storms so violent that the survival of the surveying par-
ties was often in doubt. After a particularly violent storm, for example, public
prayers were offered for the safe return of one group, “or at least for someone to
re-assure us,” said La Condamine. Ulloa (1748) offered insight to the physical
dangers of the mountain expedition:
Our common position was inside a hut because the extreme cold and violent winds did not
allow anything else. We were continuously enveloped in such a dense cloud that there was
nothing to see … When the clouds engulfed us, our breathing was made difficult by a
greater density of the air, the continuous fall of thick snowflakes or hail, violent winds and
a continuous fear that either our living quarters would be uprooted, throwing it and us over
the nearby precipice, or that the weight of ice and snow which accumulated quickly on the
hut would cave in and bury us … We were frightened by the rocks which came crashing
down when they became loose. In their fall they not only caused the entire peak to shudder,
but they swept along everything that was in their path.
