La medida de la Tierra: La expedición científica ilustrada que cambió nuestro mundo

by Larrie D. Ferreiro

A principios del siglo XVIII, en pleno auge de la Ilustración, un insólito equipo de científicos franceses y oficiales de marina españoles –entre ellos Jorge Juan y Antonio de Ulloa– y franceses emprendió la primera expedición científica internacional del mundo, con la intención de realizar mediciones astronómicas precisas en el ecuador y resolver así uno de los misterios más antiguos de la la verdadera forma de la Tierra. En su libro La medida de la Tierra. La expedición científica ilustrada que cambió nuestro mundo , el galardonado Larrie D. Ferreiro, autor de Hermanos de armas, narra por primera vez la historia completa de la Misión Geodésica al ecuador, en una época en la que Europa se debatía entre dos concepciones opuestas del los seguidores de René Descartes sostenían que la Tierra se alargaba hacia los polos, mientras que Isaac Newton defendía que era achatada. Una nación que pudiera determinar con precisión la forma del planeta podría navegar con seguridad por sus océanos y proporcionar enormes ventajas militares –con su consiguiente proyección imperial–.

Conscientes de ello, Francia y España organizaron una expedición conjunta al virreinato de Perú, provista de los más avanzados equipos topográficos y astronómicos, con el fin de medir un grado de latitud en el ecuador que, comparado con otras mediciones, revelaría la forma de la Tierra. Sin embargo, lo que desde los lejanos gabinetes científicos de París y Madrid parecía un sencillo ejercicio científico, se vio casi inmediatamente empañado por una serie de catástrofes imprevistas, y los expedicionarios vieron su misión amenazada por un terreno tan exigente como son la cordillera de los Andes o las selvas ecuatoriales, una población nativa profundamente recelosa y su propia arrogancia. La medida de la Tierra es un apasionante relato que entreteje aventura, historia política y ciencia, para narrar la mayor expedición científica de la Ilustración a través de los ojos de los hombres que la llevaron a cabo, pioneros que superaron tremendas adversidades con el objetivo de discernir la forma de nuestro mundo y sentar, además, los cimientos para la cooperación científica a escala mundial.

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, History Of Science, Geology, Nature, Popular Science

524 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 31, 2011

About the author

Larrie D. Ferreiro FRHistS received his PhD in the History of Science and Technology from Imperial College London.

He teaches history and engineering at George Mason University in Virginia and the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has served for over forty years in the US Navy, US Coast Guard and Department of Defense, and was an exchange engineer in the French Navy.

He is the author of Churchill's American Arsenal: he Partnership Behind the Innovations that Won World War Two; Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It; Measure of the Earth: The Enlightenment Expedition That Reshaped Our World; and Ships and Science: The Birth of Naval Architecture in the Scientific Revolution, 1600–1800.

Reviews

[Alberto Illán Oviedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hacía mucho que no me atrapaba tanto un ensayo histórico. En concreto este nos narra las vicisitudes en las que se vieron envueltos los participantes de la expedición geodésica franco-española al ecuador para determinar la forma de La Tierra, que era la manera científica de probar si las tesis newtonianas sobre la gravitación eran las correctas o, por el contrario, lo eran las cartesianas. Larrie D. Ferreiro nos regala un relato en el que están presentes, no sólo la ciencia que dio pie a la expedición, sino la geopolítica que permitió que, cómo aliados, Francia y España (enfrentados a los británicos en lo político, pero colaborando de cierta manera en lo científico) pudieran hacer las mediciones en lo que hoy es el Ecuador; la política local y su influencia en la propia expedición; las relaciones entre los expedicionarios, algunas veces cultivando la amistad profunda, otras veces, la enemistad no menos profunda; las relaciones que fueron capaces de construir con la población local, que, en no pocas veces, permitió que la expedición tuviera éxito. Incluso se puede decir que hay momentos donde las relaciones sociales y la aventura, en su sentido más novelesco, forman parte de un ensayo que se hace corto, se lee con interés, incluso con cierta avidez. En mi caso, hasta me dio pena cuando se acabó. Totalmente recomendable.

[Luz Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am still surprised how much I enjoyed this book. When I found this book was a casual look at a pretty art cover, but then I started reading and it immediately got my attention. This book has everything (in my opinion) lots of science, history, drama, politics, mystery, duels, travel, battles, pirates, love stories, etc.
Starting with a scientific question about the shape of the Earth the book narrates the incredible journey of french and spanish scientists to measure a degree of latitude at the equator.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history of the International Geodesic Mission to Peru in the first half of the eighteenth century, to measure a degree of latitude at the equator and decide between the Newtonian and Cartesian theories of the shape of the Earth.

Celebrated in its time, this first international scientific expedition has largely disappeared from public consciousness; most later accounts of it are based on the writings of La Condamine, and in fact it is most often referred to as the La Condamine expedition. The author has done original research on the Expedition, and the present book is based largely on letters and documents, which get beneath the published reports of the participants to explain the actual disagreements and disputes which at several points nearly derailed the expedition and did cause it to take far longer than expected at the outset. He bends the stick in the other direction, presenting Pierre Bouguer as the principal leader (all accounts agree that the official leader, Louis Godin, was incompetent) and emphasizing the role of the Spanish officers Ulloa and Juan in keeping the expedition together by bridging the feuds of Godin, Bouguer and La Condamine.

The book is popularly written, well-documented and extremely interesting reading. The one disappointment for me was that it passes over the return journey of La Condamine on the Amazon in less than a chapter. There is some discussion of the results and influence of the expedition, but the emphasis is more on personalities than on the science.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite its main focus being on one historical event, the book is a great intro to Ecuador’s history. Signs of the expedition are still visible today in Quito (statues, etc.), which made it a great pre-trip read. As an audiobook, however, I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight

[Valentin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to imagine that this was already almost 300 years ago. How resourceful were people back then! Hiking and climbing hundreds of kilometers in cold and snowy mountains with astronomical instruments. Although with the help of local servants and slaves...
Really amazing to imagine how South America was at the time, while also sad to know the great civilizations that collapsed right after Europeans arrived (200 years before the story of this book!)
Very well written and captivating. Makes me want to read more about back then, like the trip through the Amazon of Isabel Godin.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging, accessible account of the French Geodesic Mission to South America in the 1730s. I enjoyed getting to know these guys better -- the other book I read about it mostly focused on two or three characters while this provided more depth on most of the expedition participants. Sadly, I learned that even my man Charles La Condamine (who I absolutely fell in love with reading the other book) has feet of clay: apparently while he was in South America he fathered two daughters with a Peruvian prostitute and never acknowledged or helped support them. Barf. I mean, I should have seen it coming (he is French, after all :-), but it was nice to have a hero for a little while. The two Spanish officers, Ulloa and Jorge Juan were impressive throughout the saga. It's difficult to understand how the members of the expedition soldiered on for more than NINE YEARS in pursuit of their goal. By the end they had no money, little to no communication with the homeland, no public support, questionable career prospects, the broader scientific world had mostly moved on, and they all basically hated each other. But they still got the job done. Interesting read.

[Chad Bullard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a Geologist and this is a historical book that a Geologist would enjoy. Unfortunately,there is not much material on this Geodetic Mission to the Equator. Thankfully we now have Larrie D. Ferreiro’s book that covers this expedition in detail and with a spirit that makes it a very good book to read. “Measure of the Earth, The Enlightenment Expedtion That Reshaped Our World” takes place in the period is just after the Baroque music period in Europe, a period that I am fascinated to know more about. So when I am reading about this expedition in South America, I have a timeline to the events in Europe during the mission. This book gave me the insight to how hard the mission work was for the expedition. The book also gives a look at what it was like in 16th century South America. This was the foundation for Geophysics and Geodesy too. I never realized until I finished this book about the significance and accomplishments in Science that the success of this expedition succeeded in bringing about in Science. I really enjoyed this book.

[R.J. Southworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Bryson’s brief coverage of the Geodesic Mission to the Equator in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything made me want to learn more about it. Although, judging by this book, Bryson got some of the details wrong, he was certainly correct in describing this expedition as fraught with difficulty and discord. As a result, it makes for a great story, which Measure of the Earth portrays in an engaging, well-researched manner, fleshing out the key figures as much as possible and placing events in their wider political and geographical contexts.

[Teemu Öhman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Finland we are well aware of the 1736–1737 French geodesic expedition to Lapland to measure the length of a degree of arc of the meridian. The purpose was to determine the shape of the Earth, which was relevant for navigation, but it also had broader implications for Newtonian vs. Cartesian ideas about the world. The expedition, led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, was a great success and the Earth was proven to be flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator, just as Newton had predicted.

However, there was another French expedition with the same goal. It had started earlier and instead of the Arctic Circle it headed for the equator in modern day Ecuador. In shorter Finnish articles it doesn’t get mentioned at all, and even in lengthier treatises we’re usually just told that the expedition took almost a decade (1735–~1744), was hampered by all sorts of difficulties, and eventually just confirmed what Maupertuis had found out in Finnish Lapland.

Thus, I really didn’t know that much about this South American expedition. Larrie Ferreiro’s brilliant book Measure of the Earth fills this gap in my knowledge.

The expedition was officially led by Louis Godin, but he soon turned out to be a terrible choice who spent the expeditions money to buy expensive gifts to prostitutes even before they had reached their destination. Pierre Bouguer, who didn’t even want to join the expedition in the first place, became the actual leader, while Charles Marie de La Condamine was another crucial French scientist (and an explorer, an adventurer and a story-teller).

What is generally very poorly known is that the expedition was actually a French–Spanish collaboration: young Spanish officers Jorge Juan y Santacilia and Antonio de Ulloa were not only necessary for the French group to be allowed to work in what was then Spanish Peru (actually Viceroyalties of New Granada and Peru), but also highly capable scientists. They were absolutely crucial for the eventual success of the expedition. They were also usually a balancing element between the feuding Frenchmen.

It’s quite amazing that the expedition was a success in the end. The twelve men of the expedition (servants, slaves, wives and prostitutes not included) were withholding data from each other and just generally didn’t get along at all. For much of the time during the expedition and also after the key figures had returned to Europe, most of them behaved like a bunch of complete idiots. Even the most sensible of the French group, i.e. Bouguer and La Condamine, abandoned their colleagues when the measurements were finally, after years of hard work and sheer stupidity, finished. It took years and even decades for the rest of the team to return to Europe. Some died of disease or stabbing during the expedition.

Measure of the Earth is mostly a story about science and exploration in the age of Enlightenment, but it also deals with politics, war, violence, racism, slavery, sex and other very human endeavours. Larrie Ferreiro has made an amazing effort in digging up original manuscripts and letters. He has written a highly detailed, yet gripping tale of an expedition that ought to be much better known. I have seldom read books about the history of science that are as great as Measure of the Earth.

At least my paperback edition of the book has about 300 pages of the actual text (plus ~40 pages of notes). However, the font size is pretty small, so it’s actually a heftier volume than the mere page count would suggest. Because the expedition was so fascinating and many of the participants so crazy, it never gets boring, though.

Perhaps the only thing to slightly complain about is the scarcity of figures. They are also only in black and white, so a colour appendix would have been a nice bonus. This, however, is a very minor quibble. A detailed index is always a plus, and the cover is beautiful.

I highly recommend Measure of the Earth for anyone interested in the history of science and exploration, or in first-class popular science writing in general. It’s an exceptionally fine book.

4.75/5

P.S. I'd love to see this as a big budget TV series.

[Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although well written I can't give this work more than 2 stars. Such a small portion of the book is really concerned with the actual science, I had to do a lot of skimming. The book is 95% about the logistics and people of the expedition. I liked the 5% about the actual science.
History buffs interested in the relations between France and Spain early in the 18th century and the state of the Spanish colony in South America at that time, should find much more of the book worth reading.

[Mmonchi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro es un buen ejemplo de que se puede contar la historia siendo riguroso y al mismo tiempo ameno. Se centra en la expedición que fue al virreinato de Perú para medir con precisión un la longitud de un tramo de arco terrestre y así dilucidar si la Tierra estaba achatada por los polos o alargada, lo que daría la razón a Newton o a Descartes en sus explicaciones de la gravedad. Comienza con la preparación del viaje, continúa con lo que se fueron encontrando hasta llegar y los problemas que tuvieron para conseguir sus resultados. Termina con la historia de sus protagonistas después de cumplir su misión y como influyó todo esto en hechos posteriores como la independencia de Ecuador.
Por su rigor parece una tesis doctoral, con infinidad de citas que indican la procedencia de cada dato y la veracidad de todo lo que se dice, incluso haciendo hincapié en lo que se desconoce y que en ningún caso rellena. La parte científica es rigurosa pero al mismo tiempo divulgativa, transmitiendo la importancia de lo que están haciendo y los medios de que disponen de una forma accesible. Pero se lee como una novela de aventuras, sufres con los problemas que se encuentran, te indignas con sus rencillas que ponen en peligro la expedición, vives cada uno de sus éxitos o fracasos parciales y acabas deseando que consigan el reconocimiento que se merecen.
Se agradece que se rescate una historia tan interesante y tan importante para la investigación científica y que desgraciadamente ha quedado en un olvido injusto.

[Kushal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The prose is meandering and filled with amusing but peripheral digressions, much like the pursuit of the scientists themselves. Perfect analogy for all human pursuit and folly

[Keith Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a good read about the now mostly forgotten mission and its place in history and the world of science.

[Remo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a history of a joint French-Spanish expedition to Peru (now Ecuador) in the late 1730s to measure a degree of latitude at the equator. It's an interesting mix of science, history and adventure.

A bunch of scientists traveling halfway around the world back when that was HARD, to a land few of them understood or knew anything about, just to measure as precisely as possible the length of a degree of latitude at the equator is amazing. The hardships they endured and obstacles they overcame were extraordinary, and often created by their own fault. But what really blows my mind is their accuracy, which was 362,899 feet, within 50 yards of today's accepted value. This was important because it proved Newton was right that the Earth bulges at the equator versus Descartes presumption that the Earth is shaped like an egg.

One adventurer/scientist on the trip, La Condamine, is a fascinating character who continued his adventure by taking a trip down the Amazon after he was done helping measure the degree. One thing I learned was that the Amazon tribes had been decimated by European diseases by then, "plunging some of the most advanced cultures in the world back to the Stone Age." I didn't know that early European explorers saw massive cities dozens of miles across with tens of thousands of occupants on the banks of the Amazon, but by the time La Condamine arrived these had been swallowed up by the jungle.

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the best. It is a mixture of history of calculus, geodesy, and astronomy, social history of Pacific Latin America, and 18th century Anglo-French-Spanish conflicts, written in engaging, well-researched prose, adding much needed human dimension to otherwise bone-dry enlightenment scientific disputes.

I suppose you have to be interested in at least two of the main themes of the book to be as entertained as I was. The author is not a specialist in any of it, but he did his homework, and he certainly deserves his royalties and some kudos on top of it. The book does have a competitor (Crane: Latitude) but I prefer this one. I benefitted from consulting James Howard Gore's Geodesy book from 1891 regarding various details of the story that the current author deemed too technical to include.

Every teacher of calculus should read this, and I know for a fact that a great majority of them are ignorant of this story which is so central to their subject.

[JodiP · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was a nice surprise to discover this was the precursor to The Mapmaker's Wife, which I'd read a few years ago. The story of this expedition was fascinating. although the scientists truly mismanaged many aspects of the journey and work, the natural elements and the limits of known facts also impaired their efforts. Even so, they were able to measure the shape of the earth with amazing accuracy. The author kept the narrative tripping along, and I left with a sens eof awe that this task got accomplished.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the book would be an interesting read for the science, but sadly not as much of the book was about the science as expected. The book is very thorough about the expedition, it's just that much of that thoroughness was devoted to aspects I was not interested in - the personalities and the logistics, as reviewer Ross has already noted.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating account of a joint French/Spanish scientific expedition to Peru to measure the exact distance of a degree of latitude at the equator. The author makes a strong case for this joint effort setting the stage for subsequent successful revolutions to overthrow Spanish rule in the New World.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting account of an obscure 18th century French/Spanish expedition to the equator in South Amercica to determine the true shape of the Earth. You probably need an interest in science and math to enjoy the book.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very meaty historical account of the 18th c expedition to S. America to determine the shape of Earth. Incredibly well researched and cannot wait until the author comes to guest lecture in my class this fall!

[Wendy Holliday · Rating 3 out of 5]

a rare foray into non-fiction...

[Michael Florez · Rating 4 out of 5]

French suffer one degree.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perspective on what it took for us to make scientific advances that we take for granted today.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 1/2 to 3 stars.

[Alasdair Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and fascinating telling of a pioneering scientific expedition. Survey and astronomy was tough in the 1730s.

[SirLordBaltimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent - worth the effort.

[Andrew Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stunning and empowering story.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A case study on how not to manage an expedition. Fascinating.