IN SOUTH AMERICA. 257 



but, forced to keep aloof from the land we fought, we kept wandering about at random, 

 conftantly founding, and accompanied with conftant fogs, for fifteen of the fhorteft days 

 of the year, furrounded all the time by fhoals and fhallows. One night we diftinguifhed 

 the Scheveling lights, feldom feen with impunity ; at length we diftinguifhed the fhore 

 of Vlieland, while our pilots, by their reckoning, imagined us within fight of the 

 Texel. The 30th November, in the evening, I landed at Amfterdam, where, and at 

 the Hague, I waited two months for the paifports requifite to crofs the Low Countries. 

 I am indebted for thofe from England to Mr. Trevor, the minifter of that nation at 

 the Hague, who, without hefitation, granted them to the entreaty of M. TAbbe de 

 la Villi, the French ambaifador ; for thofe from the minifter of the Queen of Hun- 

 gary, I am obliged to Lord Bentinck. To conclude ; — on the 23d February 1745, I 

 arrived in Paris, after a lapfe of ten years from my departure thence. 



Letter of M. De la Condamine, written in 1773, to M. **** ; giving an Account 

 of the Fate of thofe AJironomers who participated in the requifite Operations for the 

 Meafurement of the Earthy begun in 1735. 



You feel interefted. Sir, in the labours of the Academy of Sciences undertaken for 

 the meafurement of the earth, and are anxious to learn the fate of all who were em- 

 ployed on this great work abroad fmce the year 1735; well might I anfwer you in the 

 words of Virgil,-— 



Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vafto. 



But few remain buoyed on the extenfive wafte. 



We failed from Rochelle in the month of May 1735, provided with palTports from 

 His Catholic Majefty Philip V., for the purpofe of meafuring the degrees next the 

 equator in his South Americaij dominions. Our party confifted of three members of 

 the Academy, M. Godin, M. Bouguer, and myfelf ; of M. Jofeph de Juffieu, M. D. 

 regent of the Faculty at Paris, and brother of the two other academicians, admitted 

 likewife, during his abfence, a member of the academy ; M. Seniergues, a furgeon ; 

 M. Verguin, engineer in the navy ; M. de Morainville, draughtfman for the department 

 of Natural Hiftory ; M. Couplet, a nephew of the academician of that name ; M. 

 Godin des Odonais, who will form the chief fubje6: of this letter ; and M. Hugo, a 

 watch and mathematical inftrument-maker : at Carthagena, in America, we were, 

 moreover, joined by two lieutenants of Spanifti ftiips, appointed by the court of 

 Madrid to accompany us during our obfervations. 



The following year M. de Maupertuis, nominated for the meafurement of the de- 

 grees of the meridian under the Ardic Circle, embarked at Rouen, accompanied by 

 Meffrs. Clairaut, Camus, and Monnier the younger, academicians, M, i'Abbe Outhier,, 

 M. Celfius, a Swedifti aftronomer, and others. 



In 1751, M. FAbbe de la Caille, an academician, fet fail for the Cape of Good 

 Hope, on which expedition the meafurement of two degrees of the meridian was one 

 of his lighteft labours. 



Of the five travellers to the Ar6lic Circle, only M. Monnier at prefent furvives. The 

 Abbe de la Caille, who undertook alone the voyage to the Cape, and whofe health 

 appeared proof againft every attack, on his return to Paris died, a martyr to his aftro- 



voL» XIV. • L L noniical 



