In any case, our venerated dean has shown us where to search and what the geodesist may teach the geologist, desirous of knowing the interior constitution of the earth, and even the thinker wishing to speculate upon the past and the origin of this planet.
And now, why have I entitled this chapter French Geodesy? It is because, in each country, this science has taken, more than all others, perhaps, a national character. It is easy to see why.
There must be rivalry. The scientific rivalries are always courteous, or at least almost always; in any case, they are necessary, because they are always fruitful. Well, in those enterprises which require such long efforts and so many collaborators, the individual is effaced, in spite of himself, of course; no one has the right to say: this is my work. Therefore it is not between men, but between nations that rivalries go on.
So we are led to seek what has been the part of France. Her part I believe we are right to be proud of.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, long discussions arose between the Newtonians who believed the earth flattened, as the theory of gravitation requires, and Cassini, who, deceived by inexact measurements, believed our globe elongated. Only direct observation could settle the question. It was our Academy of Sciences that undertook this task, gigantic for the epoch.
While Maupertuis and Clairaut measured a degree of meridian under the polar circle, Bouguer and La Condamine went toward the Andes Mountains, in regions then under Spain which to-day are the Republic of Ecuador.
Our envoys were exposed to great hardships. Traveling was not as easy as at present.
Truly, the country where Maupertuis operated was not a desert and he even enjoyed, it is said, among the Laplanders those sweet satisfactions of the heart that real arctic voyagers never know. It was almost the region where, in our days, comfortable steamers carry, each summer, hosts of tourists and young English people. But in those days Cook's agency did not exist and Maupertuis really believed he had made a polar expedition.
Perhaps he was not altogether wrong. The Russians and the Swedes carry out to-day analogous measurements at Spitzbergen, in a country where there is real ice-cap. But they have quite other resources, and the difference of time makes up for that of latitude.
The name of Maupertuis has reached us much scratched by the claws of Doctor Akakia; the scientist had the misfortune to displease Voltaire, who was then the king of mind. He was first praised beyond measure; but the flatteries of kings are as much to be dreaded as their displeasure, because the days after are terrible. Voltaire himself knew something of this.