LA CONDAMINE (Charles Marie de). Journal du voyage fait par - Lot 15

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LA CONDAMINE (Charles Marie de). Journal du voyage fait par - Lot 15
LA CONDAMINE (Charles Marie de). Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi à l'Equateur [accompagné de] Mesure des trois premiers degrés du méridien dans l'hémisphère austral. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1751. Two volumes in-4, contemporary marbled calf, spines with 5 ornate nerves, red morocco title-pieces, gilt tomaison, red edges, restorations (qq. ff. browned, qq. stains not serious). A fine reunion of these two works in different but very homogeneous period bindings. The second is illustrated with 10 plates, most of them folding, including 2 maps and a plan of Quito. In the first quarter of the 18th century, two theories clashed over the shape of the Earth: was it swollen at the equator and flattened at the poles, as Newton claimed, or elongated, as Jacques Cassini asserted? The King ordered two expeditions, one to Lapland, the other to Peru (now Ecuador). Charles Marie de la Condamine took part in the latter, along with two other scientists, the mathematician Bouguer and the astronomer Godin. This geodesic expedition, organized by the Royal Academy of Sciences, was to measure a degree of meridian between Quito in the north and Cuenca in the south, and lasted almost ten years. In 1751, La Condamine published an account of his expedition. In his Journal, the author recounts the adventures of the voyage to Peru, with various observations, including a report on the descent of the Amazon between Quito and Para, while in the second volume of his work, Mesure des trois premiers degrés du méridien, he describes the operations carried out in the field from the vicinity of Quito to beyond Cuenca for the geometric measurement of these three degrees of the meridian, and then gives the results of the observations made on site to determine the astronomical measurement (or amplitude of the arc of the meridian) of these same degrees. Bound in fine, the Nouveau projet d'une mesure invariable propre à devenir universelle (8 pages) Extracted from a Mémoire read at the public assembly of the Académie des Sciences on April 24, 1748. Some early handwritten corrections.
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