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Book Cover
E-book
Author Safier, Neil.

Title Measuring the new world : enlightenment science and South America / Neil Safier
Published Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 387 pages, 20 pages of plates) : illustrations, maps (some color)
Contents The ruined pyramids of Yaruquí -- An enlightened Amazon, with fables and a fold-out map -- Armchair explorers -- Correcting Quito -- A nation defamed and defended -- Incas in the king's garden -- The golden monkey and the monkey-worm
Summary Prior to 1735, South America was largely terra incognita to many Europeans. But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a joint French and Spanish mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the Earth at the Equator--an expedition that would put South America on the map and in the minds of Europeans for centuries to come. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission's participants referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a "sacred fire" passing mysteriously through European astronomical ins
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-371) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Mission géodésique (France)
SUBJECT Mission géodésique (France) fast
Subject Scientific expeditions -- Ecuador -- Quito -- History -- 18th century
Science -- Europe -- History -- 18th century
Communication in science -- Europe -- History -- 18th century
SCIENCE -- History.
Communication in science
Discoveries in geography
Discoveries in geography -- French
Historical geography
Science
Scientific expeditions
SUBJECT Ecuador -- Discovery and exploration -- French
Amazon River Region -- Discovery and exploration
South America -- Historical geography
Subject Amazon River Region
Ecuador
Ecuador -- Quito
Europe
South America
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780226733562
0226733564