Latitude by Nicholas Crane
In 1735 an expedition left France for South America. Their mission was to make latitudinal measurements at the Equator to aid navigation but also answer the hotly debated question over the shape of the world. Was it elongated at the poles, as Rene Descartes said, or flattened, as Isaac Newton held? If Newton was right, gravity would be weaker at the Equator.
Latitude follows the expedition across the Atlantic, through jungles and over mountains and past corrupt Spanish officials—some of them unwilling to obey the orders of their king to accord the French full respect and assistance. Latitude is a science story and an adventure worthy of Robert Louis Stevenson, written with elegant flair by the Royal Geographic Society’s Nicholas Crane. The squabbling, contentious scientist-explorers determined the shape of the Earth and discovered rubber and quinine, enabling colonial exploitation as well as advances in technology and medicine.
