Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Charles Marie de La Condamine (French: [la kɔ̃damin]; 28 January 1701 – 4 February 1774) was a French explorer, geographer, and mathematician.He spent ten years in territory which is now Ecuador, measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the equator and preparing the first map of the Amazon region based on astro-geodetic observations.
The highest point on the equator is at the elevation of 4,690 metres (15,387 ft), at , found on the southern slopes of Volcán Cayambe [summit 5,790 metres (18,996 ft)] in This is slightly above the snow line and is the only place on the equator where snow lies on the ground.
By 1684, sufficient data had been obtained to show that previous maps of France had a major longitude error, showing the Atlantic coast too far to the west. In fact France was found to be substantially smaller than previously thought. [67] [68] (Louis XIV commented that they had taken more territory from France than he had gained in all his wars.)
The French Geodesic Mission to the Equator (French: Expédition géodésique française en Équateur), also called the French Geodesic Mission to Peru and the Spanish-French Geodesic Mission, was an 18th-century expedition to what is now Ecuador carried out for the purpose of performing an arc measurement, measuring the length of a degree of latitude near the Equator, by which the Earth's ...
His discovery of the decrease in intensity of Earth's magnetic field from the poles to the equator was communicated to the Paris Institute in a memoir read by him on 7 December 1804. Its importance was attested by the speedy emergence of rival claims.
Older monument to the equator in Calacalí (2008) The Ciudad Mitad del Mundo ( Middle of the World City ) is a tract of land owned by the prefecture of the province of Pichincha , Ecuador . It is located at San Antonio parish of the canton of Quito , 26 km (16 mi) north of the center of Quito .
Glacial deposits found in South Africa date back to 2.2 Ga, at which time, based on paleomagnetic evidence, they must have been located near the equator. Thus, this glaciation, known as the Huronian glaciation, may have been global. Some scientists suggest this was so severe that Earth was frozen over from the poles to the equator, a hypothesis ...
Latitude was measured from the equator, as it is today, but Ptolemy preferred to express it as the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc (the length of the midsummer day increases from 12h to 24h as you go from the equator to the polar circle). He put the meridian of 0 longitude at the most western land he knew, the Canary Islands.