Jorge Juan y Santacilia - A Stan Klos Website
JUAN Y SANTACILIA, Jorge (hwan-e-san-tah-theel'-yah),
Spanish mariner, born in Novelda, near Alicante, 5 January, 1713; died in
Madrid, 21 June, 1773. At the age of twelve he entered the order of Malta, and
after some campaigns in Africa was admitted to the royal marine guards, studying
mathematics and astronomy in the schools of this corps at Carthagena.
He was entrusted, at the age of twenty-two, with the
command of a corvette, in which he made several voyages to America. In 1735 he
accompanied Ulloa, La Condamine, and others in their journey to Peru to execute
the project of measuring an arc of the meridian at the equator, and it was
entirely owing to him that the height of mountains was measured successfully by
means of the barometer. On his return to Spain he devoted himself to the
reorganization of the Spanish navy.
In addition to several works on navigation, he wrote
"Observaciones sobre astronomia y fisica, hechas en el Reino del Perú por Don
Jorge Juan y Don Antonio Ulloa" (Madrid, 1748; French translation, Amsterdam
and Paris, 2 vols., 1752); "Disertacion historica sobre el meridiano de
demarcacion entre los dominios de España y Portugal" (1749, French
translation, Paris, 1776); and "Estado de la astronomia en Europa"
(1773).
Edited Appletons Encyclopedia by John Looby, Copyright © 2001
StanKlos.comTM
JUAN Y SANTACILIA, Jorge (hwan-e-san-tah-theel'-yah), Spanish mariner, born in Novelda, near Alicante, 5 January, 1713; died in Madrid, 21 June, 1773. At the age of twelve he entered the order of Malta, and after some campaigns in Africa was admitted to the royal marine guards, studying mathematics and astronomy in the schools of "his corps at Carthagena. He was intrusted, at the age of twenty-two, with the command of a corvette, in which he made several voyages to America. In 1735 he accompanied Ulloa, La Condamine, and others in their journey to Peru to execute the project of measuring an arc of the meridian at the equator, and it was entirely owing to him that the height of mountains was measured successfully by means of the barometer. On his return to Spain he devoted himself to the reorganization of the Spanish navy. In addition to several works on navigation. He wrote "Observaciones sobre astronomia y fisica, hechas en el Reino del Peril por Don Jorge Juan y Don Antonio Ulloa" (Madrid, 1748; French translation, Amsterdam and Paris, 2 vols., 1752); "Disertacion historica sobre el meridiano de demarcacion entre los dominios de Espafia y Prtugal" (1749, French translation, Paris, 1776); and "Estado de la astronomia en Europa" (1773).
