Charles Marie de La Condamine
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
explorer, geographer
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
, and mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. He spent ten years in present-day Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
measuring the length of a degree latitude at the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
and preparing the first map of the Amazon
Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
region based on astronomical observations.
Biography
Charles Marie de La Condamine was born in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
as a son of well-to-do parents, Charles de La Condamine and Louise Marguerite Chourses. He studied at the Collège Louis-le-Grand where he was trained in humanities as well as in mathematics. After finishing his studies, he enlisted in the army and fought in the war against Spain (1719). After returning from the war, he became acquainted with scientific circles in Paris. On December 12, 1730 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences and was appointed Assistant Chemist at the Academy.
The next year (May 1731) he sailed with the Levant Company
Levant Company
The Levant Company, or Turkey Company, was an English chartered company formed in 1581, to regulate English trade with Turkey and the Levant...
to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
(now Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
) where he stayed five months. After returning to Paris, La Condamine submitted in November 1732 a paper to the Academy entitled Mathematical and Physical Observations made during a Visit of the Levant in 1731 and 1732.
Three years later he joined an expedition to present-day Ecuador that had the aim to test a hypothesis of Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
. Newton had posited that the Earth is not a perfect sphere, but bulges around the equator and is flattened at the poles. Newton's opinion had raised a huge controversy among French scientists. Pierre Louis Maupertuis
Pierre Louis Maupertuis
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Berlin Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great....
, Alexis Claude Clairaut, and Pierre Charles Le Monnier
Pierre Charles Le Monnier
Pierre Charles Le Monnier was a French astronomer. His name is sometimes given as Lemonnier.-Biography:...
traveled to Lapland, where they were to measure the length of several degrees of latitude orthogonal to the arctic circle, while Louis Godin
Louis Godin
Louis Godin was a French astronomer and member of the French Academy of Sciences. He worked in Peru, Spain, Portugal and France.-Biography:...
, Pierre Bouguer
Pierre Bouguer
Pierre Bouguer was a French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer. He is also known as "the father of naval architecture"....
, and La Condamine were sent to South America to perform similar measurements around the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
.
On May 16, 1735, La Condamine sailed from La Rochelle accompanied by Godin, Bouguer, and a botanist Joseph de Jussieu
Joseph De Jussieu
Joseph de Jussieu, , was a French botanist, member of the Jussieu family. He introduced the common garden heliotrope into Europe.He was the brother of Bernard and Antoine de Jussieu,...
. After stopovers in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, Cartagena (Columbia), they came to Panama where they crossed the continent. Finally (March 10, 1736) the expedition arrived at the pacific port of Manta
Manta
Manta is a mid-sized city in Manabí Province, Ecuador. It is the second most populous city in the province, the fifth most populous in the country and, economically, the third most important city of Ecuador. Manta has existed since Pre-Columbian times. It was a trading post for the Mantas....
. His associations with his principals were unhappy; the expedition was beset by many difficulties, and finally La Condamine split from the rest and made his way to Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
separately, becoming the first Westerner to encounter rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
in the process. He joined the group again on June 4, 1736 in the city of Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
.
The meridian (longitudinal) arc
Meridian arc
In geodesy, a meridian arc measurement is a highly accurate determination of the distance between two points with the same longitude. Two or more such determinations at different locations then specify the shape of the reference ellipsoid which best approximates the shape of the geoid. This...
that was chosen to measure the length of passed through a high valley perpendicular to the equator, stretching from Quito (now the capital of Ecuador) in the north to Cuenca
Cuenca
Cuenca may refer to:In Ecuador:* Cuenca, Ecuador, capital of the Azuay Province and named in honor to the spanish city.** Cuenca basin , the drainage basin** Cuenca basin , a geologic structural basinIn the Philippines:...
in the south. The scientists spent a month performing triangulation measurements in the Yaruqui plains—from October 3 to November 3, 1736—and then returned to Quito. After they had come back in Quito, they found that subsidies expected from Paris had not arrived. La Condamine, who had taken precautions and had made a deposit on a bank in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, traveled early 1737 to Lima to collect money. He prolonged this journey somewhat to study the Cinchona tree with its medicinally active bark (containing the anti-malarial drug quinine
Quinine
Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic , antimalarial, analgesic , anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. It is a stereoisomer of quinidine which, unlike quinine, is an anti-arrhythmic...
), the tree being hardly known in Europe.
After returning to Quito on June 20, 1737, he found that Godin refused to disclose his results, whereupon La Condamine joined forces with Bouguer. The two men continued with their length measurements in the mountainous and inaccessible region close to Quito. When in December 1741 Bouguer, detected an error in a calculation of La Condamine, these two explorers got into a quarrel as well and stopped speaking to each other. However, working separately, the two completed their project in May 1743.
Insufficient funds prevented La Condamine from returning to France directly. Thus La Condamine chose to return by way of the Amazon River, a route which is longer and more dangerous. His was the first scientific exploration of the Amazon. He reached the Atlantic Ocean on September 19, 1743, having made observations of astronomic and topographic interest on the way. He also made some botanical studies, notably of Cinchona and Rubber trees. In February 1744 he arrived in Cayenne
Cayenne
Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...
, the capital of French Guyana. He did not dare to travel back to France on a French merchant ship because France was at war (the Austrian Succession War of 1740–1748) and he had to wait for five months for a Dutch ship, but made good use of his waiting time by observing and recording physical, biological, and ethnological phenomena. Leaving finally Cayenne in August 1744, he arrived in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
on November 30, 1744 where he stayed for a while, and arrived in Paris in February 1745. He brought with him many notes, natural history specimens, and art objects that he donated to the naturalist Buffon
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author.His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier...
(1707–1788).
La Condamine published the results of his measurements and travels with a map of the Amazon in Mém. de l'Académie des Sciences, 1745 (English translation 1745–1747). This included the first descriptions by a European of the Casiquiare canal
Casiquiare canal
The Casiquiare river is a distributary of the upper Orinoco flowing southward into the Rio Negro, in Venezuela, South America. As such, it forms a unique natural canal between the Orinoco and Amazon river systems. It is the largest river on the planet that links two major river systems, a...
and the curare
Curare
Curare is a common name for various arrow poisons originating from South America. The three main types of curare are:* tubocurare...
arrow poison prepared by the Amerindians. He also noted the correct use of quinine
Quinine
Quinine is a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic , antimalarial, analgesic , anti-inflammatory properties and a bitter taste. It is a stereoisomer of quinidine which, unlike quinine, is an anti-arrhythmic...
to fight malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. The journal of his ten-year long voyage to South America was published in Paris in 1751. The scientific results of the expedition were unambiguous: the Earth is indeed a spheroid flattened at the poles as was believed by Newton. Not surprisingly, La Condamine and Bouguer failed to write a joint publication, it is Bouguer's death in 1758 that put an end to their quarrel. The other expedition member, Godin, died in 1760. The only surviving member, La Condamine, obtained most of the credits for the expedition that drew lots of attention in France. Although less talented in astronomy than Godin and a lesser mathematician than Bouguer, La Condamine was a gifted writer and popularizer.
On a visit to Rome La Condamine made careful measurements of the ancient buildings with a view to a precise determination of the length of the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
foot. He also wrote in favour of inoculation
Inoculation
Inoculation is the placement of something that will grow or reproduce, and is most commonly used in respect of the introduction of a serum, vaccine, or antigenic substance into the body of a human or animal, especially to produce or boost immunity to a specific disease...
, and on various other subjects, mainly connected with his work in South America.
La Condamine had contracted smallpox in his youth. This led him to take part in the debate on vaccination against the disease and to propagate inoculation against small-pox. Assisted by the clarity and elegance of his writing, he presented several papers at the Academy of Sciences in which he defended his ideas with passion. He became a corresponding member of the academies of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
and Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
and was elected to the l'Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
on November 29, 1760. In August 1756, he married, with papal dispensation, his young niece Charlotte Bouzia of Estouilly. La Condamine had many friends, the closest one being Maupertuis whom he bequeathed his papers. Condamine died in Paris February 4, 1774, following a hernia operation.
South America
- Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi à l'équateur (Paris 1751, Supplement 1752)
- Relation abrégée d'un voyage fait dans l'intérieur del'Amérique méridionale (Paris 1759)
- "Mémoire sur quelques anciens monumens du Perou [sic], du tems des Incas", in: Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles Lettres II (1746), Berlin 1748, S. 435–456 (hier als PDF).
Others
- La figure de la terre déterminée (Paris 1749)
- Mesure des trois premiers degrés du méridien dans l'hémisphère australe (Paris 1751)
- Histoire de l'inoculation de la petite vérole (Amsterdam 1773)