The Mapmaker's Wife (45 page)

67
. The account of a dog biting Jussieu is from Trystram, 38.

68.
“700 toises above sea level,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 9.

68.
“determine their heights geometrically,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 9.

69.
“ill, bled, purged, cured,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 3.

71.
“youngbeard without experience,”
Trystram, 43.

72-5
. Descriptions of daily life in Cartagena, Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 19–87.

76.
“the knowledge and the personal merit,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 5.

76.
“great fatigue, time and expense,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 5.

76.
“four, five, six thousand crowns,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 104.

77
.
“these verifications were so precise,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 275.

77.
“cursed by nature,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 99.

77.
“without treading on them,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 103.

78.
“the most fertile imagination,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 111.

78.
“When dead, [the monkeys] are scalded,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 110.

79.
“of the thermometer, the barometer,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 10.

79.
“I see that this trip,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 43.

80.
“and sometimes another in their mouth,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 129.

80.
“wraps its fins around a man,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 129.

80.
“Tomorrow we are to see,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 41.

81.
“easier to provide for the subsistence,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 38.

81.
“extremely mountainous and almost covered,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 143.

82.
“of all this coast, the most westerly,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 11.

82.
“an emerald the size of an ostrich egg,”
Bouguer, 276.

83.
“of labour painful to excess,”
Bouguer, 276.

83.
“discordant stunning noise,”
Bouguer, 278.

83.
“Palmar, where I carved,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 12.

84-8
. The trek from Guayaquil to Quito is described by Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 150–211.

89
. A number of writers have reported that Maldonado and La Condamine traveled together from Esmeraldas to Quito. This mistaken version of events appears to have originated with Von Hagen’s
South America Called Them
. Historians at a 1985 colloquium in Paris pointed out the error.

89-91
. La Condamine describes his trip from Esmeraldas to Quito in
Journal du voyage
, 13–15.

Chapter Six: Measuring the Baseline

93.
“tropical paradise,”
Bouguer, 285.

95.
“transcendental matters of science,”
Vera, 10.

96.
“seemed to vie with each other,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 208.

96.
“breathing an air more rarified,”
Bouguer, 286.

96.
“Nature has here scattered,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 276.

96.
“vast quantities of wrought plate,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 255.

96.
“white and fibrous, but infinitely delicate,”
Bouguer, 299.

97.
“affected great magnificence in their dress,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 264.

97.
“Every part of their dress is,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 265.

98.
“Seventy mules used to carry cargo,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 16.

99.
“watch that the said astronomers,”
Colloque International
. Article by Jorge Salvador Lara, “La Biblioteca Americana de Don Antonio de Alcedo y Bejarano y la expedición de los académicos franceses,” 81.

100.
“within the boundaries,”
Zúñiga, 26.

100.
“I will always be suspicious,”
Colloque International
, 82.

100.
“would be found near or next to the equator,”
Zúñiga, 27.

100.
“the first time that I had emerged,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 17.

101.
“I completely satisfied the President,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 17.

101
. Zúñiga details how many of the elite in Quito bought goods from La Condamine.

102.
“operations alone without needing to refer,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 39.

104.
“as a pessary, composed of gun-powder,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 219.

104.
“the base of whole work,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 212.

106.
“Such dreadful whirlwinds,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 212.

107.
“was always open for all the French men,”
Zúñiga, 38.

107.
“the practice of astronomy and trigonometry,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 269–270.

107
. The story of the connection between the Gramesóns and the expedition can be put together from information in Zúñiga, ’s
250 Años
, Arellano’s
Una historia de amor
, genealogical research by Lemaire, and La Condamine’s journal. Martín’s
Daughters of the Conquistadores
provides a wonderful account of daily life inside eighteenth-century convent schools in Peru.

Chapter Seven: High-Altitude Science

112.
“cabelleros del punto fijo,”
Krousel, 6.

112.
“no employment or calling to occupy,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 269.

112-113
. Arthur Whitaker detailed the dispute between Ulloa, Juan, and Araujo.

115.
“considerably incommoded by the rarefaction,”
Bouguer, 287.

115.
“I remained a long time without sense or motion,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 216.

115.
“No one before us, that I know of, had seen the mercury,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 35.

116.
“rolling large fragments of rock,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 217.

116.
“When the fog cleared up,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 217.

117.
“that they would rather have suffered,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 220.

117.
“we were continually in the clouds,”
Bouguer, 287.

117.
“Our feet were swelled and so tender,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 218.

118.
“The mountains in America are in comparison,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 47.

119.
“He was always in movement,”
Pierre de La Condamine, 1314. Although some of the biographical details about Jean in Pierre de La Condamine’s article are wrong, his description of Jean’s harsh life in the mountains fits with what Charles-Marie de La Condamine wrote about Jean’s work as a signal carrier.

120.
“strongest and most convincing proof,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 42.

120.
“Mr. Godin des Odonais preceded us,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 52.

121.
“from this sad situation,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 55.

122.
“clothes, eyebrows, and beards covered in icicles,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 58.

122.
“and we could guarantee the accuracy,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 58.

122.
“alter in a geometrical progression,”
Bouguer, 288.

124.
“They retired with all the marks of extreme sorrow,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 226.

124.
“Even those of the best parts and education,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 224.

125.
“the little cabins of the Indians,”
Juan and Ulloa,
A Voyage to South America
, 223.

125.
“completely imprudent enterprise,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 43.

125.
“one might even come to believe that the earth,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 50. (Modern surveys have determined that at the equator, a degree of longitude is 1,948 feet longer than a degree of latitude.)

126.
“Do the observers have some predilection,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 27.

126.
“it is evident that the earth is considerably flattened,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 258.

126.
“flattener of the earth and the Cassinis,”
Jones, 93.

126.
“The arguments increased,”
LaFuente and Delgado, 17.

127.
“This flatness [of the earth] appears even more considerable,”
James Smith, 94.

127.
“choose to stay [neutral] till the French arrive,”
Jones, 93.

128.
“agreeable reception provided us,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 66.

128.
“She possessed every talent,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 66.

129.
“contrary to all received opinion,”
Bouguer, 275.

129.
“Nature has here continually in her hands,”
Bouguer, 306.

130.
“I spent eight days wandering,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 75.

130.
“sleep was continually interrupted,”
Bouguer, 306.

130.
“the most beautiful horizon,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 78.

130.
“whole side of the mountain seemed to be on fire,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 77.

130.
“suffering too much from the heat,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 80.

133
. See James Smith and LaFuente and Delgado for details about the expedition’s measurements around Tarqui and about the accuracy of their work in the Andes.

133.
“our geometric measurements were completely finished,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 84.

Chapter Eight: Death in the Afternoon

La Condamine wrote at length about Senièrgues’s murder, in the form of a “Lettre à Madame ***,” which he published in his
Relation abrégée d’un voyage fait dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique Méridionale
, pages 215–260. I have relied on a Spanish translation of that letter, published in
Relación abreviada de un viaje hecho por el interior de la América Meridional
(Madrid: Calpe, 1921), 133–192.

Ulloa and Juan wrote about the abuse of the Indians in their confidential report to the Spanish Crown, published in 1826 under the title
Noticias secretas de América;
Ulloa is believed to be the principal author. I have used a more recent translation of that book, titled
Discourse and Political Reflections on the Kingdoms of Peru
.

136.
“Senièrgues stopped Leon at a street corner,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 138.

138.
“Work in the
obrajes
,”
Juan and Ulloa,
Discourse and Political Reflections
, 135.

139.
“commanded to stretch out on the ground,”
Juan and Ulloa,
Discourse and Political Reflections
, 145.

139.
“so that the sparks fall on the victims,”
Juan and Ulloa,
Discourse and Political Reflections
, 145.

140.
“all their efforts to enriching themselves,”
Juan and Ulloa,
Discourse and Political Reflections
, 103.

141.
“there were times when there would not be a week that passed,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 55.

141.
“stabbed by a mulatto in broad daylight,”
La Condamine,
Journal du voyage
, 56.

142.
“bullfights are in the blood of the Spanish people,”
Carrión.

143.
“did not have any virtue,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 139.

143.
“This was the first time,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 141.

143.
“There was nothing that could infuriate,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 143.

144.
“give them a spectacle,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 145.

144.
“Seeing himself surrounded,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 145.

144.
“up in his arms the wounded,”
La Condamine,
Relación abreviada de un viaje
, 148.