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238 The Mediterranean of Louis XV
the ‘Introductory Discourse’ of each edition of Churchill’s
popular Collection of Voyages and Travels. 8 To these were
added lists of instruments that would permit the travellerobserver
to quantify phenomena and to verify the work of his
predecessors:
Every Traveller ought to carry about him several sorts of Measures, to
take the Dimensions of such things as require it; a Watch by which,
and the Pace he travels, he may give some guess at the distance of
Places, or rather at the length of the computed Leagues, or Miles; a
Prospective-glass, or rather a great one and a less, to take views of
Objects at greater and less distances; a small Sea-Compass or Needle,
to observe the situation of Places, and a parcel of the best maps to
make curious Remarks of their exactness, and note down where they
are faulty. 9
In the decades following the publication of Rooke’s and Boyle’s
instructions, a number of British traveller-observers operating
in the Mediterranean eagerly sought to demonstrate their participation
in the new scientific project. Francis Vernon (1637?–
77), a member of the Royal Society who visited the Dalmatian
Coast, Greece, and the Levant in 1675–7, was careful to record
astronomical measurements of latitude at eight sites on the
Greek mainland and to dispatch his findings to the secretary
of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg. 10 At the same time, the
botanist George Wheler (1650–1723), travelling through
Greece and the Aegean with the French physician and antiquary
Jacob Spon (1647–85), was highly attentive to the geography
of Attica, spending considerable time surveying the
terrain and publishing an important ‘Map of Achaia’ in his
Journey into Greece (1682, French trans. 1689). The map was
based on Vernon’s latitudes supplemented by Wheler’s own
observations, made with a ‘Mariner’s Needle, from several
8 Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1704), i. pp. lxxiii–lxxvi; (2nd
edn., 1732), pp. lxix–lxxi; (3rd edn., 1744), pp. lxix–lxxii.
9 Ibid. (1704), i. lxxv–lxxvi.
10 ‘Mr. Francis Vernon’s letter, written to the publisher Januar. 10th
167 5 / 6, giving a short account of some observations in his travels from Venice
through Istria, Dalmatia, Greece, and the Archipelago to Smyrna, where this
letter was written’, Philosophical Transactions no. 124 (24 April 1676), 582.
Athens: 388; Corinth: 388 14’; Sparta: 378 10’; Coron: 378 02’; Patras: 388 40’;
Delphos: 388 50’; Thebes: 388 22’; Chalcis: 388 31’.