French Geodesic Mission to the Equator
Misión geodésica francesa al Ecuador
- Date
- 1735-1744 · confidence high
- Place
- Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador
- Credited to
- Pierre Bouguer, Charles-Marie de La Condamine and Louis Godin, with Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
An expedition of the Paris Academy of Sciences that measured a meridian arc of about 3° between Tarqui and Cotchesqui to determine the shape of the Earth. Together with the Lapland mission, it confirmed that the Earth is flattened at the poles as Newton predicted.
Field measurements ran from 1736 to 1743; the expedition extended to 1744 with La Condamine's return down the Amazon. The final results were published in 1749.
What it led to
- Confirmation of the Earth's flattening and of Newtonian gravitation
- The first measurement of a mountain's gravitational pull (Bouguer, Chimborazo, 1738)
- A proposal for a natural unit of length that influenced the metric system
- Descriptions of rubber, cinchona and curare that La Condamine took to Europe