Louis Godin was a French astronomer and member of the French Academy of Sciences. He worked in Peru, Spain, Portugal and France.

Charles Marie de La Condamine 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. Furthermore he was a contributor to the Encyclopédie.