Abstract
two metrological expeditions: one to Lapland, near the North Pole, and the other to Quito, near the equator. Measuring the length of a meridian arc of one degree at each of these two sites and comparing the results would resolve the issue. As it turned out, Newton was correct. The equatorial expedition entailed unprecedented international coopera tion, because Spain had long forbid den foreigners to travel in its Ameri can dominions. It also provided a wide European public with rare information about equatorial South America, the fabled land of the Incas, the Amazons and El Dorado. For the next nine years, the team traveled widely, conducting geodesical measurements. Its mem bers also gathered information about a territory that Europeans still knew little about 200 years after the Spanish conquest of the Inca empire. Measuring the New World, by Neil Safier, is a deft, thoughtful examina tion of what happened to European Enlightenment science in an American setting, and of how South America was depicted in Europe as a result of this exploration. What makes Safier's book stand out from other works on
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