The Mapmaker's WifeIn the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000 foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats