The metre, measured between Dunkirk and Barcelona
Delambre surveyed the northern stretch; Méchain the southern. The meridian survey that fixed the length of the metre, and the error Méchain kept to himself.
Dos astrónomos midieron el metro y uno guardó un secreto
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An advanced Spanish reading text about the expedition of Delambre and Méchain to measure the meridian arc between Dunkirk and Barcelona and set the length of the metre by it. It covers how they divided the work, what triangulation with Borda's repeating circle involved, how war trapped Méchain in Catalonia, why his two sets of latitude observations disagreed, and what he did about that discrepancy until his death at Castellón de la Plana in 1804. It closes with the present definition of the metre from the speed of light and with a few questions for the reader.
Se eligió el arco de meridiano que va de Dunkerque a Barcelona, dos ciudades a la orilla del mar y separadas por casi diez grados de latitud. El trabajo se repartió entre dos astrónomos: Jean-Baptiste Delambre levantó el tramo del norte; Pierre Méchain, el del sur. Uno bajaba desde la costa del mar del Norte hacia Rodez; el otro subía desde el Mediterráneo hacia el mismo punto.
Medir no consistía en recorrer el terreno con una cuerda, sino en cubrirlo de triángulos. Desde una torre o desde una cima se tomaban los ángulos hacia otros dos vértices, y así, de triángulo en triángulo, se encadenaban centenares de kilómetros sin bajar al valle. Los ángulos se medían con el círculo repetidor de Borda, un instrumento pensado para acumular la misma observación muchas veces sobre el limbo graduado sin volver a cero, de modo que al dividir el total entre el número de repeticiones quedaran divididos también los errores de lectura y de graduación.
Ninguno de los dos trabajaba en un país tranquilo. Delambre recorría una Francia en plena revolución, y no siempre era fácil explicar a las autoridades de un pueblo qué hacía un desconocido subido al campanario con un aparato de bronce. Méchain lo tuvo peor: en 1793 estalló la guerra entre Francia y España, y él ya estaba en Cataluña, atrapado en el país con el que su gobierno acababa de romper. Siguió midiendo cuando pudo y esperando cuando no.
Había observado la latitud de Barcelona desde el castillo de Montjuic, en lo alto de la ciudad. Cuando quiso repetir las observaciones, la guerra le impidió volver allí, y las hizo desde la fonda en la que se alojaba, la Fontana de Oro. Las dos series no coincidían: la de Montjuic daba un valor; la de la fonda, otro. La diferencia era diminuta en el cielo, unos pocos segundos de arco, pero sobre el terreno equivalía a unos cien metros.
Méchain no dijo nada. En otro momento quizá habría podido decirlo sin gran coste, pero en marzo de 1794 la Academia ya había sido suprimida y a Delambre lo habían expulsado de la comisión de pesas y medidas unos meses antes. Prefirió no hacerlo. Ordenó sus cuadernos de manera que la discrepancia no saltara a la vista, y cargó con tal secreto el resto de su vida.
Años más tarde volvió a España para prolongar el arco hacia el sur, hasta las Baleares. No llegó a terminarlo: enfermó de unas fiebres y murió en Castellón de la Plana en 1804. Delambre heredó sus papeles, entendió lo que tenía delante y publicó las dos series de latitud una al lado de la otra, pero se guardó la prueba de que Méchain había ocultado y retocado sus datos.
About this article
What you'll learn
Verbal ellipsis marked by a comma, substitution with «el de / la de», the pair «uno … el otro», «hacerlo», «tal» and «lo mismo», plus vocabulary of surveying and of the history of science.
An advanced Spanish reading text about the expedition of Delambre and Méchain to measure the meridian arc between Dunkirk and Barcelona and set the length of the metre by it. It covers how they divided the work, what triangulation with Borda's repeating circle involved, how war trapped Méchain in Catalonia, why his two sets of latitude observations disagreed, and what he did about that discrepancy until his death at Castellón de la Plana in 1804. It closes with the present definition of the metre from the speed of light and with a few questions for the reader.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
lo tuvo peor
newhe had a harder time of it
The pattern `tenerlo` + adjective (lo tuvo peor, lo tiene fácil, lo tuvo difícil) says how easy or hard someone's situation was. The adjective works as a predicative complement and stays in the invariable masculine singular, because `lo` stands for the situation as a whole, not for any particular noun.
Very common in speech and journalism, and impossible to work out word by word.
no saltara a la vista
newto be obvious, to leap out at you
The idiom `saltar a la vista` means that something is noticeable at once. Here it appears as `saltara`, the imperfect subjunctive, because `de manera que` is being used with a sense of purpose rather than of result.
One of the most frequent ways of saying that something is obvious in Spanish.
en plena revolución
newin the thick of a revolution
`En pleno/plena` + noun places something at the height of, or in the middle of, whatever follows: en plena calle, en pleno invierno, en plena noche. `Pleno` agrees with the noun, which is why a feminine `revolución` gives `plena`.
A very productive pattern: one construction covers dozens of nouns.
No llegó a terminarlo
newto get as far as doing something
`Llegar a` + infinitive marks reaching the point of doing something. In the negative it usually corresponds to `never managed to`: `no llegó a terminarlo` means he never finished it. Keep it apart from `llegar a ser`, which means to become.
It carries the shade of `never quite did`, which English needs several words for.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
la empresa
la empresa entera
the undertaking (not `the company` here)
`Empresa` usually means a firm or a business, but it keeps an older sense of a large and difficult undertaking. In the text `la empresa entera` is the whole meridian project, not a company.
A classic trap: a familiar word in an unfamiliar sense that is common in historical and journalistic prose.
el tramo
el tramo
the stretch, the section
`Tramo` is a part of something long: a stretch of road, a flight of stairs, a leg of a route. Here it is a section of the meridian arc. Do not confuse it with `trozo`, a piece of anything, or `trámite`, a piece of paperwork.
A basic word in writing about roads, railways, stairs, routes and surveying.
la fonda
la fonda
the inn
A `fonda` was a modest establishment where a traveller could both eat and sleep. In Spain that lodging sense now sounds old-fashioned and `hostal`, `pensión` or `hotel` are the ordinary choices; it survives mainly in the names of old buildings. Across much of Latin America the word is still fully current with a different value: in Mexico a `fonda` is a cheap eating house, and in Chile a stall or hall at the national holiday fairs.
It turns up in historical writing and on the signs of old buildings, and in Latin America it is everyday vocabulary.
heredar
heredó
to inherit; to take over from a predecessor
`Heredar` is not only about inheriting property from the dead. It very often means taking something over from whoever came before: heredar un problema, heredar un equipo, heredar unos papeles. In the text Delambre takes over his dead colleague's records.
The figurative use is very common in business and journalistic prose.
el campanario
campanario
the bell tower
A `campanario` is the tower that holds the bells (`campanas`), nearly always part of a church. The set phrase `de campanario` means narrowly parochial: `política de campanario` is small-town politics.
Bell towers were the obvious survey points in a landscape, so the word turns up constantly in writing about mapping and about villages.
ensombrecer
ensombreció
to overshadow, to cast a shadow over
The verb is built on `sombra` (shadow) with the pattern en- + base + -ecer, the same one behind `entristecer` (from triste) and `enriquecer` (from rico). It means to darken, and figuratively to spoil the impression left by something good.
The en-…-ecer pattern is productive, so recognising it unlocks a whole family of verbs.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
A comma standing in for a repeated verb
a uno de hoy, la cifra y su margen de error
of one today, the figure and its margin of error
In the second half of the contrast the verb phrase `se le pedía` is not repeated; a comma takes its place: `A un observador de entonces se le pedía una cifra; a uno de hoy, la cifra y su margen de error`. The comma is the normal mark of this kind of gap, and it is what the academic spelling rules recommend.
Many written contrasts in Spanish are built this way, and prose without it reads as clumsy and school-like.
`el de` / `la de`: the article that replaces a repeated noun
el del sur
the southern one
`El del sur` stands for `el tramo del sur`. The definite article on its own replaces a noun already mentioned, followed by `de` plus a complement: el del norte, la de Montjuic, los de ayer. The article keeps the gender and number of the noun it replaces, which is why it is `el` here (for `el tramo`) and not `la`.
It lets you drop the noun in a contrast; without it Spanish reads like a beginner's translation.
`uno … el otro`: a pair without repeating the names
el otro subía desde el Mediterráneo
the other was coming up from the Mediterranean
When two people have already been named, the first member of the pair normally goes without an article (`uno`) and the second takes the definite article (`el otro`), because once the first has been picked only one candidate is left. The feminine pair is `una … la otra`, the plural `unos … los otros`.
It is the standard way of splitting a job between two people already introduced, without naming them again.
`hacerlo`: one verb standing for a whole action
Prefirió no hacerlo
he chose not to do so
`Hacerlo` replaces an action already named, here that of making the discrepancy known. The unstressed pronoun `lo` attaches to the infinitive and is written as one word: hacerlo, no hacerlo, decirlo. With an infinitive periphrasis both positions are available: `lo habría podido decir` and `habría podido decirlo` are equally correct.
It is the main device for not narrating the same action twice.
`tal` instead of `ese`: pointing back to what was just said
cargó con tal secreto
he carried that secret
Before a noun, `tal` points back to something mentioned just before, much like `ese` or `dicho`, but in a more formal register: tal secreto, tal decisión, en tales casos. In the singular it has one form for both genders, and in the plural it becomes `tales`.
A marker of written and official Spanish that you need to recognise in documents and articles.
`lo mismo`: the neuter standing for a whole action
Harías lo mismo
would you do the same
`Lo mismo` refers not to a noun but to a whole action or situation, so it takes the neuter form and does not agree: hacer lo mismo, decir lo mismo, me da lo mismo. When there is a specific noun, the agreeing form is used instead: el mismo tramo, la misma serie.
As a short answer, `lo mismo` replaces a whole sentence, and it is extremely frequent in conversation.
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