1. There are a number of accounts of the creation of the Académie, but one can most profitably cite only René Taton, Les origines de l'Académie royale des sciences (Conférence donnée au Palais de la Découverte le 15 mai 1965; Université de Paris: Histoire des sciences, série D. 105).

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For the entire history of that institution, see Roger Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666-1803 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971). On the matter of its possibly declining usefulness, see Seymour L. Chapin, ''The Academy of Sciences During the Eighteenth Century: An Astronomical Appraisal." French Historical Studies 5 (1968): 371-404. [BACK]

2. Although there is no single work which treats that tradition completely, the last two volumes of Alfred Lacroix's Figures de savants (Paris, 1932-1938) are most useful since, after starting with a sketch of the Académie, they continue the biographical approach of the first two volumes but with the special goal revealed in the subtitle L'Académie des sciences et l'étude de la France d'outre-mer de la fin du XVII ^c siècle au début de XIX ^e . From 1914 until his death in 1948, Lacroix served as the Académie's permanent secretary. [BACK]

3. There may have been a French circumnavigation of the earth in the first decade of the seventeenth century, but there is a great deal of doubt about such a voyage. See Ch. de la Roncière, Histoire de la marine française (Paris, 1898-1932), IV, 288, and John Dunmore, French Explorers in the Pacific , Vol. I: The Eighteenth Century (New York, 1965). Both of these books are important for the subject of this study. Other works of more general significance—because of their wider scope—include Edward Heawood, A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (New York, 1965); J. C. Beaglehole, The Exploration of the Pacific (Stanford, 1966); Christopher Lloyd, Pacific Horizons: The Exploration of the Pacific Before Captain Cook (London, 1946); J. H. Parry, Trade and Dominion: The European Overseas Empires in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1971); and P. J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams, The Great Map of Mankind: Perceptions of New Worlds in the Age of Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass., 1982). More specific studies are cited at the appropriate places. [BACK]

4. Mémoire touchant l'établissement d'une mission chrestienne dans le troisième monde autrement appelé la Terre Australe, Méridionale, Antartique et inconnue, dédiez à notre S. Père le Pape Alexandre VII, par un ecclésiastique originaire de cette mesme terre . For good brief accounts, see de la Roncière, Histoire de la marine française , III, 133-137, and Dunmore, French Explorers , pp. 4-7. [BACK]

5. On those earlier efforts and France's relations with Madagascar, see Jules Sottas, Histoire de la Compagnie royale des Indes Orientales, 1664-1719 (Paris, 1905). [BACK]

6. On Colbert's economic program see Charles Woolsey Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism (New York, 1939). [BACK]

7. The basic source for these developments are his Horologium of 1658, his Horologium oscillatorium . . . of 1673, and his correspondence and papers; all are available in the Oeuvres complétes de Christian Huygens publiées par la Société hollandaise des sciences (La Haye, 1888-1950). A

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short but reliable older study of Huygens is A. E. Bell's Christian Huygens and the Development of Science in the Seventeenth Century . It has recently been importantly updated by the publication of the proceedings of two symposia held in 1979 to mark the 350th anniversary of his birth: H. J. M. Bos and others, eds., Studies on Christiaan Huygens (Lisse, 1980) and Huygens et la France (Paris, 1982). [BACK]

8. For his dealings with French scientists and his involvement in the foundation and direction of the Académie, see the older H. L. Brugmans, Le séjour de Christian Huygens à Paris et ses relations avec les milieux scientifiques français (Paris, 1935), and the newer study by Roger Hahn, "Huygens in France," in the first of the symposia cited in the previous note. [BACK]

9. Perhaps the best general treatment of Colbert's cartographical goals remains Lloyd A. Brown's The Story of Maps (Boston, 1949). [BACK]

10. On Picard's scientific competence see John W. Olmsted, "Recherches sur la biographie d'un astronome et géodésien méconnu: Jean Picard (1620-1682)," Revue d'histoire des sciences 29 (1976): 213-222, and, more important, the same author's "The Problem of Jean Picard's Membership in the Académie Royale des Sciences, 1666-1667," which appeared in the proceedings of a Picard symposium held in Paris in 1982. See Guy Picolet, ed., Jean Picard et les débuts de l'astronomie de précision au XVII ^e siècle (Paris, 1987). [BACK]

11. Galileo's concept had early been put to an unsuccessful test by his French contemporary, Peiresc. See Seymour L. Chapin, "An Early Bureau of Longitude: Peiresc in Provence," Navigation 4 (2) (June 1954): 59-66, and "The Astronomical Activities of Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc," Isis 48 (1957): 13-29. Cassini's 1668 publication was the Ephemerides Bononienses mediceorum syderum, ex hypothesibus et tabulis Joan. Domin. Cassini . [BACK]

12. There are a number of useful surveys of this general subject, of which the following, in addition to Brown's study cited in note 9, represent a judicious selection: F. Marguet, Histoire générale de la navigation du XV ^e au XX ^e siècle (Paris, 1931); Seymour L. Chapin, "A Survey of the Efforts to Determine Longitude at Sea," Navigation 3 (6-8) (1952-1953): 188-191, 242-249, 296-303; Edmond Guyot, Histoire de la détermination des longitudes , edited by Chambre Suisse de l'Horlogerie (La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1955); E. G. R. Taylor, The Haven-Finding Art: A History of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook (London, 1956); Eric G. Forbes, The Birth of Scientific Navigation: The Solving in the 18th Century of the Problem of Finding Longitude at Sea (Greenwich, 1974); Derek Howse, Greenwich Time and the Discovery of the Longitude (New York, 1980). [BACK]

13. The ground-breaking study of this important distinction, and the source of the cited quotation, is John W. Olmsted, "The Scientific Expedition of Jean Richer to Cayenne," Isis 34 (1942): 117-128. [BACK]

14. For the planned Madagascar expedition, the more limited out-

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comes, and the resultant voyage to Acadia, see John W. Olmsted, ''The Voyage of Jean Richer to Acadia in 1670: A Study in the Relations of Science and Navigation Under Colbert," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 104 (6) (December 1960): 612-634. [BACK]

15. On the last of these developments, see John W. Olmsted, "The Application of Telescopes to Astronomical Instruments: A Study in Historical Method," Isis 40 (1949): 214-225. For an older survey of these developments see G. Bigourdan, Histoire de l'astronomie d'observation et des observatoires en France. Première partie: De l'origine à la fondation de l'observatoire de Paris (Paris, 1918), especially pp. 118-144; for a newer one see Robert M. McKeon, Etablissement de l'astronomie de précision et oeuvre d'Adrien Auzout (Paris, 1965). [BACK]

16. Picard's famous Mesure de la terre , originally published in 1671, was several times reprinted. For details see the bibliography of the article on Picard by Juliette Taton and René Taton in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography , X, pp. 595-597. The Dictionary will hereafter be cited, as has become customary usage, as DSB . See also L. Gallois, "L'Académie des sciences et les origines de la carte de Cassini," Annales de géographie 18 (1909): 193-204; René Taton, "Jean Picard et la mesure de l'arc de méridien Paris-Amiens," Colloques internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 590 (1980): 349-361; and, in addition to Lloyd Brown's book cited in note 9, his Jean Dominique Cassini and HIS World Map of 1696 (Ann Arbor, 1941). [BACK]

17. See the Olmsted article cited in note 13 above. For the later developments, see pages 91-93. [BACK]

18. On Roemer and his work, see I. B. Cohen, "Roemer and the First Determination of the Velocity of Light," Isis 31 (1940): 327-379; the article by Zdenek Kopal in DSB , XI, 525-527; and the proceedings of a symposium held in Paris in 1976 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his great discovery, Roemer et la vitesse de la lumière (Paris, 1978). [BACK]

19. For Roemer's contribution in a large-scale study of the general subject, see L. Defossez, Les savants du XVII ^e siècle et la mesure du temps (Lausanne, 1946). For briefer indications see Maurice Daumas, Les instruments scientifiques aux XVII ^e et XVIII ^e siècles (Paris, 1953). [BACK]

20. It is entirely possible, of course, that he may have been anticipated in that realization—and perhaps even in a construction—by Robert Hooke, although his claim to have done so (as with so many other of his ideas and inventions) was a matter of warm dispute. For a brief account see Margaret 'Espinasse, Robert Hooke (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), pp. 61-71. [BACK]

21. Although it has been virtually universally stated that this set of annual tables was initiated by Picard, the article by the Tatons (see note 16) makes it clear that the first volumes were published by one Joachim Dalencé. [BACK]

22. On this collection of maps see Howard M. Chapin, "The French Neptune and Its Various Editions," American Book Collector (Metuchen, N.J.) 2 (1932): 16-19. [BACK]

23. On Father Fontenay and the expedition about to be discussed, see Brown, Jean Dominique Cassini . . ., pp. 42-44. On the Jesuit effort in general see le Père Guy Tachard, Voyage de Siam, des Pères Jésuites, envoyez par le Roy aux Indes à la Chine. Avec leurs observations astronomiques, et leur remarques de physique, de géographie, d'hydrographie et d'histoire (Paris, 1686). [BACK]

24. For a brief but accurate treatment of La Salle, see Heawood, A History of Geographical Discovery , pp. 109-117, which treatment, in fact, has been conveniently reprinted as "The French in Inland America" in Robert G. Albion, ed., Exploration and Discovery (New York, 1965), pp. 69-79. [BACK]

25. On the further development of the East India Company's holdings, trade, and fleet, see Henry Weber, La compagnie française des Indes, 1604-1875 (Paris, 1904). On the China Company see Charles Woolsey Cole, French Mercantilism 1683-1700 (New York, 1965), chap. 1. [BACK]

26. The most detailed account of that development remains E. W. Dahlgren, Les relations commerciales et maritimes entre la France et les côtes de l'océan Pacifique (commencement du XVIII ^e siècle) (Paris, 1909). Although it is designated vol. I, no other volumes seem to have appeared. [BACK]

27. See Dunmore, French Explorers in the Pacific , pp. 26-31, for good brief treatments of Feuillet and Frézier; the quotation appears on p. 30. A fuller study of the first, there spelled Feuillée, is available in Lacroix, Figures de savants , III, 15-21. [BACK]

28. The original of the act, 12 Anne, Cap. 15, may be consulted in The Statutes at Large (arranged and edited by Danby Pickering), XIII, 116-118. It has been extensively quoted in most of the works cited in note 12 above, to which there might now be usefully added the classic Rupert T. Gould, The Marine Chronometer, Its History and Development (London, 1923). [BACK]

29. For Meslay's will and the prize programs and winners, see Ernest Maindron, Les fondations de prix à l'Académie des sciences. Les lauréats de l'Académie 1714-1880 (Paris, 1881), pp. 13-22. It has often been mistakenly stated that the Meslay prizes were a reaction to the English offer when, in fact, they antedated it by about two months. See, for example, Taylor, The Haven-Finding Art , pp. 253-254. [BACK]

30. The 100,000 livres that the regent of France offered to have the Académie give to the discoverer of the longitude was never put at the disposition of that illustrious institution. See Maindron, Fondations , p. 23, in contradistinction to the usual suggestions. [BACK]

31. The equation was as follows:

[Full Size]

32. He further stated that the force of gravity increases from the equator to the poles proportional to the square of the sines of latitude. See his Proposition XIX, Problem III, and his Proposition XX, Problem

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IV, in Book III ( The System of the World ) of the Principia . In the paperback version from the University of California Press (1962), Book III makes up Vol. II of Andrew Motte's 1729 English translation as revised and explained by Florian Cajori. [BACK]

33. Under the title of De la grandeur et de figure de la terre . The dispute about to be discussed has been treated many times, beginning with J. B. J. Delambre's Grandeur et figure de la terre (Paris, 1912). Much of it may be found in histories of geodesy, perhaps the most convenient of which is Georges Perrier, Petite histoire de la géodéie (Paris, 1939). More germane to this study, as well as being more closely related to its time period, is the large, instructive, but ill-organized work of Isaac Todhunter: A History of the Mathematical Theories of Attraction and of the Figure of the Earth (London, 1873). I used all of these sources in preparing a brief article on the 1735 expeditions and a library display of primary works dealing with this subject; see "Expeditions of the French Academy of Sciences, 1735," Navigation 3 (1952): 120-122, and "The Size and Shape of the World: A Catalogue of an Exhibition from the Collection of Robert B. Honeyman, Jr.," UCLA Library Occasional Papers 6 (1957). See also the more recent, popular, but accurate Tom B. Jones, The Figure of the Earth (Lawrence, Kans., 1967). [BACK]

34. John Greenberg, "Geodesy in Paris in the 1730's and the Paduan Connection," Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 13 (1903): 239-260. The older view—stemming ultimately from the Cartesian-Newtonian dichotomy presented in Voltaire's Philosophical Letters —was first developed significantly in Pierre Brunet, L'Introduction des théories de Newton en France au XVIII siècle avant 1938 (Paris, 1931). That dichotomy itself has been under attack for well over a decade by Henry Guerlac and his students. Thus the persistence of Cartesianism was clearly demonstrated in Thomas L. Hankins, Jean D'Alembert: Science and the Enlightenment (New York, 1970), while Guerlac's own studies have shown the difficulties in the very term "Newtonianism." See especially his recent Newton on the Continent (Ithaca, 1981). [BACK]

35. For a convenient study of Delisle with a full listing of his own works as well as secondary accounts—including those detailing his efforts in Russia—see my article in DSB , IV, 22-25. It perhaps should be remarked that his contemporaries called him Delisle le jeune or le cadet to distinguish him from his older brother and Académie confrère, Guillaume l'aine , who after early tutoring from Cassini had undertaken (according to Brown, The Story of Maps , pp. 242-243) "a complete reform of a system of geography that had been in force since the second century" and very nearly accomplished it. There was also a still younger brother, Louis, who accompanied Jean to Russia and was known as Delisle de la Croyère. [BACK]

36. La figure de la terre, determinée par les observations . . . faites par ordre du roy au cercle polaire (Paris, 1738). [BACK]

37. A fuller title of the work is as follows: La méidienne de l'Obser-

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vatoire Royal de Paris, vérifiée dans toute l'étendue du royaume par de nouvelles observations. Pour en déduire la vraye grandeur des degrés de la terre, tant en longitude qu'en latitude, et pour y assujettir toutes les opérations géométriques faites par ordre du roi, pour lever une carte générale de la France. . . . Suite des Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, MDCCXL (Paris, 1744). [BACK]

38. On Godin and his works, see my article in DSB , V, 434-436. [BACK]

39. This judgment was put forward in the DSB article on La Condamine by Yves Laissus; see XV (Supplement I), pp. 269-273. The two mentioned works by La Condamine were his Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi, à l'équateur, servant d'introduction historique à la mesure des trois premiers degrés du méridien (Paris, 1751) and his Mesure des trois premiers degrés du méridien dans l'hémisphere autral, tirée des observations de Mrs de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, envoyés par le roi sous l'équateur (Paris, 1751). [BACK]

40. See "Bouguer" in DSB , II, 343-344, by W. E. Knowles Middleton. [BACK]

41. La figure de la terre, determinée par les observations de Messieurs De la Condamine et Bouguer, de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, envoyés par order du Roy au Pérou pour observer aux environs de l'équateur . . . [BACK]

42. Bouguer's invention was subsequently challenged from England, but he did not really enter into a priority controversy. See the note by the editor in J. B. J. Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie au dixhuitième siécle (Paris, 1827), pp. 349-350, and the fuller recent study by Danielle Fauque, "Les origines de l'héliometre," Revue d'histoire des sciences 36 (1983): 153-171. [BACK]

43. The fundamental work on this institution remains A. Doneaud du Plan's L'Académie Royale de Marine, 1752-1793 (Paris, 1882). That separate version was published as an abstract in the Revue maritime et coloniale, 1878-1882 . Unfortunately, the version that I have employed was provided by Inter Library Loan directly from the numbers of that Revue but without indications of years. Since it appeared in a considerable number of small segments, however, it has seemed appropriate to provide the title of the segment being cited and the most logical guess as to the sequential year of the Revue in which it appeared. [BACK]

44. Although the Traité appeared at the beginning of 1753, the report on it had been read at the Académie's meeting of 23 November 1752. See, in the preceding, the first segment, "L'Académie de Marine de 1752 à 1765," part I of which deals with the "Fondation de l'Académie" and part II with the "Années 1752 et 1753." See the Revue maritime et coloniale , 1878, especially pp. 490-491. On the later edition, see page 100 below. [BACK]

45. Roger Hahn, "L'enseignement scientifique des gardes de la marine au XVIII ^e siècle," in René Taton, ed., Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France au XVIII ^e siècle (Paris, 1964), pp. 547-558. [BACK]

46. The title of his contribution was Description et usage des principaux instruments d'astronomie (Paris, 1774). On that general collection, which

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was being revived in the second half of the eighteenth century, see Arthur B. Cole and George B. Watts, The Handicrafts of France, as Recorded in the Description des arts et métiers, 1761-1788 (Boston, 1952). An excellent brief discussion of the revival, set in the larger context of science and technology in France at that time, may be found in Charles Coulston Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime (Princeton, 1980), especially pp. 344-355. On Lemonnier, see the article by Thomas L. Hankins in DSB , VIII, 178-180; Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie , pp. 179-237; and J.J.L. de Lalande, Bibliographie astronomique avec l'histoire de l'astronomie depuis 1721 jusqu'à 1802 (Paris, 1803), pp. 819-826. [BACK]

48. Actually, before returning to France, Lacaille was instructed to establish accurately the position of the lies de France and Bourbon, and it was on his voyage to the first of these sites that he used the lunardistance technique. See his posthumously published Journal historique du voyage fait au Cap de Bonne-Esperance (Paris, 1776), which contains an extensive anonymous (actually written by l'abbé Claude Carlier) discours historique on his life and writings, especially pp. 65, 101, and 195-196. A very important part of his work at the cape was, of course, the measure of most of a degree of the meridian there, an almost herculean task the outcome of which supported the hypothesis of the prolate spheroid. In addition to the discours historique , important works on Lacaille are Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie , pp. 457-542; Lacroix, Figures de savants , III, 161-165; Angus Armitage, "The astronomical work of Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille," Annals of Science 12 (1956): 165-191; and Owen Gingerich's article in DSB , VII, 542-545. [BACK]

49. Ephémérides des mouvemens célestes pour dix années, depuis 1755 jusqu'en 1765 et pour le méridien de la ville de Paris. Où l'on trouve les longitudes et les latitudes des planètes . . . et généralement tousles calculs qui sont nécessaires pour connoitre l'état actuel du ciel et pour faciliter les observations astronomiques. . . . Pour servir de suite aux Ephémérides de M. Desplaces. Par M. de la Caille, de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Professeur de Mathématiques au Collège Mazarin. Tome Quatrième (Paris, 1755). See pp. xxx-xliv, "Avertissement sur le discours suivant, au sujet de la manière de déterminer sur merles longitudes par les observations de la lune." [BACK]

50. This according to Article XII of the Académie's règlement of 1699, the first official bylaws of that institution. For that document see Ernest Maindron, L'Académie des sciences (Paris, 1888), pp. 18-24. A recent study of the 1699 developments was a paper presented by Stewart Saunders to the Society of French Historical Studies at Bloomington, Indiana, on 14 March 1981: "The Reorganization of the Paris Academy

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in 1699." On the various editors of the Connaissance des temps , although erroneously naming Picard its first, see Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie , pp. 250, 339, 554, 607, 608, 752, 754, 758, 766. [BACK]

51. On Lalande, see Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie , pp. 547-621, and Thomas L. Hankins' article in DSB , VII, 579-582. Hankins' bibliography contains several other useful sources. [BACK]

52. Harry Woolf, The Transits of Venus: A Study of Eighteenth Century Science (Princeton, 1959). [BACK]

53. So he said in the eulogy of Pingré that he placed in his history of astronomy for 1796, the year of his death. See Lalande, Bibliographie astronomique , pp. 774-775. [BACK]

54. This was his Exposition du calcul astronomique (Paris, 1762). [BACK]

55. This has not been generally recognized; the honor has usually been assigned elsewhere, frequently to Lorenz Crell's Chemisches Journal begun in 1778. See, for example, Douglas McKie, "The Scientific Journal from 1665 to 1798," Philosophical Magazine (July 1940): 122-132, and David A. Kronick, A History of Scientific and Technical Periodicals: The Origins and Development of the Scientific and Technological Press, 1665-1790 (New York, 1962). [BACK]

56. Seymour L. Chapin, "Lalande and the Longitude: A Little Known London Voyage of 1763," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 32 (1978): 165-180. [BACK]

57. The first significant analysis of Maskelyne's works was that in Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie , pp. 623-634; both it and the recent article by Eric G. Forbes, DSB , IX, 162-164, have now been supplanted by Derek Howse's Nevil Maskelyne: The Seaman's Astronomer (Cambridge, 1989). [BACK]

58. Almost all of the works cited in note 12 above include some treatment of the chronometer developments about to be discussed, but the works of Guyot and Fayet are particularly important in this regard. To them there should be added Gould's classic study, The Marine Chronometer . Some elsewhere unmentioned materials may also be found occasionally in the work of Doneaud du Plan. [BACK]

59. On Camus, see my article in DSB , III, 38-40. To have him "joining" Lalande is not technically correct, since the latter had never been officially named to this task by the Académie; see the article cited in note 56. On Harrison, see, in addition to Gould, the more recent and more biographical work of Humphrey Quill, John Harrison, the Man Who Found Longitude (London, 1966). [BACK]

60. That such was necessary was the result of the phraseology of the prize program itself: "Déterminer la meilleure manière de mesurer le tems à la mer en exigeant comme une condition essentielle que les montres, pendules ou instruments qu'on pourra présenter pour cet objet ayent subi à la mer des épreuves suffisantes et constatées par des témoignages authentiques"; Maindron, Fondations , p. 21. [BACK]

61. A succinct account of the attempts of Mess. Harrison and LeRoy, for

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finding the longitude at sea, and of the proofs made of their works. By M. LeRoy . . . . To which is prefixed, a summary of the Marquis de Courtanvaut's voyage, for the trial of certain instruments (London, 1768). For the original of the latter: Journal du voyage de M. le marquis de Courtanvaux, sur le frégate Aurore, pour essayer, par ordre de l'Académie, plusieurs instrumens relatifs à la longitude; mis en ordre par M. Pingé, chanoine régulier de Sainte-Geneviève, nommé par l'Académie pour coopérer à la vérification desdits instrumens, de concert avec M. Messier (Paris, 1768). [BACK]

62. The account of the voyage of Chappe, who died at the site of his observations, was subsequently brought out by Cassini IV; see Jean Chappe d'Auteroche, Voyage en Californie, pour l'observation du passage de Vénus sur le disque du soleil le 3 juin 1769 . . . (Paris, 1772). Fleurieu's account was published in 1773: Voyage fait par ordre du roi, en I768 et 1769, en différents parties du monde, pour éprouver en met les horloges marine, par M. d'Eveux de Fleurieu . Berthoud drew up his own memoir, which was read to both the Académie des Sciences and the Académie de Marine in July 1769 and then inserted into volume I of the Mémoires manuscrits of the latter. "Sur la manière dont on peut faire l'épreuve d'une horloge marine pour s'assurer de la confiance que l'on doit avoir en elle pour la détermination des longitudes en mer." See Doneaud du Plan's section VII, "L'Académie royale de marine en 1769," Revue maritime et coloniale , 1879, especially pp. 344-345. [BACK]

63. See especially Doneaud du Plan's section VI, "Réconstitution de l'Académie," Revue maritime et coloniale , 1879, pp. 323-337. See also the Hahn article cited in note 45. [BACK]

64. Leroy drew up a full description of one of the tested clocks in his Mémoire sur la meilleure manière de mesurer le terns en mer, qui a remporté le prix double au jugement de l'Académie royale des Sciences. Contenant description de la montre à longitudes, presentée à Sa Majesté le 5 Août 1766 (Paris, 1770). On the sea test, see Jean Dominique Cassini, Voyage fait par ordre du roi, en 1768, pour éprouver les montres marines inventée par M. Leroy . . . (Paris, 1770). [BACK]

65. On Borda, see Jean Mascart, La vie et les travaux du Chevalier Jean-Charles de la Borda (1733-1799): épisodes de la vie scientifique au XVIII ^e siècle (Paris and Lyon, 1919). Although Gillispie (see note 46) has recently warned that this book is unreliable in detail, I have not found it such, while C. Stewart Gillmor's article on Borda in DSB , II, 299-300, characterizes it only as "a massive 800-page study." [BACK]

66. Jean René Antonie Verdun de la Grenne, Voyage fait par ordre du roi, en 1771 et 1772; par MM. de Verdun, de Borda et Pingré (Paris, 1778). [BACK]

67. Gould, Marine Chronometer , p. 83. [BACK]

68. Although treated in all the standard histories of astronomy, the study of Mayer's work has been placed on a whole new basis in the many contributions of Eric Forbes. In addition to that cited in note 12, see his Euler-Mayer Correspondence (1751-1755): A New Perspective on Eighteenth-

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Century Advances in the Lunar Theory (New York, 1971); Tobias Mayer's Opera Inedita: The First Translation of the Lichtenberg Edition of 1775 (New York, 1971); and the more recent and much needed full biography, Tobias Mayer (1723-62): Pioneer of Enlightened Science in Germany (Göttingen, 1980). [BACK]

69. He did so in its final pages, including there a comparison with Pingré's approach: J.J. de Lalande, Astronomie (Paris, 1764), II, 1534-1544. [BACK]

70. Mémoire sur l'observation des longitudes en mer publié par ordre du roi (Paris, 1767). [BACK]

71. Lalande, Bibliographie , pp. 497-498. [BACK]

72. See his Experiences sur les longitudes, faites à la mer en 1767 et 1768, publié par ordre du roi (Paris, 1768) and Théorie et pratique des longitudes en mer, publié . . . (Paris, 1772). Although Lalande credits Véron with the idea of this instrument ( Bibliographie , p. 502), Lemonnier does not mention Véron in a contemporary work which also treats of the French marine watches, errors that he claims to have found in Lacaille's edition of Bouguer's Trâité de navigation , and several other matters of interest to this study: Astronomie nautique lunaire, où l'on traite de la longitude et de la latitude en mer . . . suivies d'autres tables des mouvemens du Soleil et des étoiles fixes, auxquelles la Lune sera compareé dans les voyages de long cours (Paris, 1771). [BACK]

73. For an appreciation of the reflecting circle see the works by Forbes cited in note 68, the Mascart work in note 65, and J. B. J. Delambre, Grandeur et figure de la terre (Paris, 1912). [BACK]

74. For convenience I have used a readily available reprint of the early English version of this famous expedition: Lewis de Bougainville, A Voyage Round the World Performed by Order of His Most Christian Majesty in the Years 1766, 1767, 1768, and 1769 (translated by John Reinhold Forster, London, 1772; republished in 1967 by the Gregg Press, Ridgewood, N.J.). Though Bougainville's voyage has been frequently dealt with—as, for example, in the several works cited above in note 3—it has only recently received the truly scholarly treatment it deserves: Bougainville et ses compagnons autour du monde. Journaux de navigation établis et commentés par Etienne Taillemite (Paris, 1977). M. Taillemite, head curator at the National Archives, has even more recently placed that voyage in a larger context in "The French Contribution to the Discovery of the Pacific" (which begins with Bougainville), a paper presented to the International Congress of Maritime Museums at its 1981 conference in Paris. I should like to thank Derek Howse for providing me with copies of that brief but splendid offering and of the two commentaries made on it at that meeting. [BACK]

75. For a brief treatment of the Bouvet venture, see Beaglehole, Exploration of the Pacific , pp. 186-187, and Oliver E. Allen and the edito of Time-Life Books, The Pacific Navigators (Alexandria, Va., 1980), es-

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pecially p. 78. The latter work is notable for a large number of fascinating illustrations, a comment that applies equally to Taillemite's study. Bouvet, incidentally, was a competitor of Bougainville for the voyage of circumnavigation in the 1760s. [BACK]

76. See p. 62 above; Charles de Brosses, Histoire des navigations aux terres australes (Paris, 1756). On de Brosses and his influence, see Alan Carey Taylor, Le Président de Brosses et l'Australie (Paris, 1937). [BACK]

77. Denis Diderot, Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, publié d'après le manuscrit de Léningrad avec une introduction et des notes par Gilbert Chinard (Baltimore, 1935), p. 15. Chinard's introduction and notes provide the essential basis for the next paragraph as well. [BACK]

78. At least in the English translation. See, for example, Bougainville, Voyage , p. 242. In his own log, however, it is clear that lunar distances were being employed since he usually provides the name of star that Verron (his spelling) was observing; Taillemite, Bougainville , passim. [BACK]

79. For the orders themselves, see ''Instructions to Captain Cook for His Three Voyages," The Naval Miscellany , III (edited by W. G. Perrin for the Navy Records Society as vol. LXIII of that society's Publications , 1928), pp. 341-364; for a balanced use of them, see John M. Ward, "British Policy in the Exploration of the South Pacific, 1699-1793," Royal Australian Historical Society 33 (pt. 1) (1929): 25-49. [BACK]

80. For good brief accounts of the voyages, see Dunmore, French Explorers in the Pacific , 114-195; for Poivre's many activities, see Lacroix, Figures de savants , III, 191-213. [BACK]

81. The account of Kerguelen's voyages in Dunmore (pp. 196-249) is marred by a serious error; see note 85 below. For a fuller and more recent account, see Maurice Raymond (Amiral) de Brossard, Kerguelen: le découvreur et ses îles (Paris, 1970-1971). [BACK]

82. A Voyage to Madagascar, and the East Indies. By the Abbé Rochon, member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris. . . . Translated from the French. Illustrated with an accurate map . . . To which is added, a memoir on the Chinese trade (London, 1792). [BACK]

83. On that invention, which became the subject of a lively priority contest between Rochon, Boscovich, and Maskelyne, see the former's Recueil de mémoires sur la mécanique et la physique (Paris, 1783). For a good summary, see the long note by the editor in Delambre, Histoire , pp. 645-652. [BACK]

84. Dunmore first stated that Lepante [ sic ] d'Agelet was replaced by Mersay as the expedition's astronomer, but he later referred to him as the occupant of that position; see n. 3 on p. 220 and p. 259. See also the following note. [BACK]

85. Mersay threw himself overboard in an apparent fit of delirium on the return voyage. Dunmore (p. 235) states that thereafter "the estimates of longitude became extremely unreliable." Inasmuch as d'Agelet

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was still on board—and in view of the fact that the ship also carried a Berthoud chronometer—there would seem to be no obvious reason for this alleged loss of reliability. [BACK]

86. Despite its untimely end, an official account of the voyage was drawn up on the basis of materials sent back to France from the Kamchatka peninsula and from Australia's Botany Bay: Voyage de La Pérouse autour du monde, publié conformément au décret du 22 avril 1791, et rédigé par M. L. A. Milet-Mureau (Paris, 1797). The first of the four volumes contains the editor's preface and the various instructions, the following two are Lapérouse's account, and the last consists of the astronomical observations. There are diverse spellings of the name Lapérouse, but that adopted here is his own. A new edition of the middle two volumes of the Voyage was brought out by the Club des Libraires de France in 1965; it is recommended for its preface and postface by Contre-amiral de Brossard, who reconstructs the route of the expedition after it left Botany Bay and recounts his own finding of the wreckage of the Boussole in 1964. [BACK]

87. In addition to the picture presented by the editor of the Voyage , other early accounts insisted upon that same image. This was true, for example, of the reports made to Napoleon on the sciences by Delambre and Cuvier: J. B. J. Delambre, Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences mathématiques depuis 1789, et sur leur état actuel (Paris, 1810), especially p. 210, and Georges Cuvier, Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences naturelles . . . (Paris, 1810), especially p. 267. Understandably, the Irishman who found its wreckage in 1827 called it "the most important scientific expedition that ever sailed from Europe." See Peter Dillon, Narrative and Successful Result of a Voyage in the South Seas, Performed by Order of the Government of British India, to Ascertain the Actual Fate of LaPérouse's Expedition (London, 1829), especially p. ix. Dillon, who found only the hulk of the Astrolabe , commanded by de Langle, was followed shortly by J. S. C. Dumont d'Urville, who raised a monument to the expedition on Vanikoro Island, the site of its demise. See Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabe éxécute par ordre du roi, pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, sous le Commandant de M.J. Dumont D'Urville (Paris, 1830-1835). Among the more recent "scientific" treatments, One may include the work of a descendant of the expedition's second-in-command, Fleuriot de Langle, La Tragique expédition de LaPérouse et Langle (Paris, 1940); Dunmore, French Explorers in the Pacific , pp. 250-282; and Ernest S. Dodge, Beyond the Capes: Pacific Exploration from Captain Cook to the Challenger, 1776-1877 (Boston, 1971), pp. 30-42. [BACK]

88. Seymour L. Chapin, "Scientific Profit from the Profit Motive: The Case of the LaPerouse Expedition," Actes du XII ^e Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences (Paris, 1971), XI, 45-49. [BACK]

89. A convenient source for the French—and American—exemptions regarding Cook is the chapter entitled "Benjamin Franklin's Pass-

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port'' in Sir Gavin de Beer, The Sciences Were Never at War (New York, 1960), pp. 26-28. On the matter of nondelusion in the case of Lapérouse, see, for the attitude of the English ambassador in Paris, Oscar Browning, ed., Dispatches from Paris , Vol. I: ( 1784-1787 ) (London, 1909), pp. 52-53; for Jefferson's skepticism, his order to John Paul Jones to investigate, and the latter's report, see J.P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson , Vol. VIII: ( 25 February to 31 October 1785 ) (Princeton, 1953), pp. 339, 587-588, 592-593. On the matter of the prevalence of the "competition" view, it would appear, for example, that Glyndwr Williams would now be willing to subscribe to it rather than insisting, as he did at an earlier time in the context of Pacific exploration generally, that "attempts to separate the various strands of motive are probably more misleading than helpful." See his Expansion of Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Overseas Rivalry, Discovery, and Exploration (New York, 1967). [BACK]