The commissioners who were sent to the equatorial regions were Messrs. Bouguer, La Condamine, and Godin, the last of whom was accompanied by his wife. Two Spanish officers, Messrs. Juan and De Ulloa, joined the commission. The party arrived at Quito in June, 1736, about two hundred years after Gonzalo Pizarro started from the same place in his search for Eldorado. In the interval, the country had become nominally Christian. The city was the seat of a bishopric, an audience royal, and other courts of justice; contained many churches and convents, and two colleges. But the population was almost entirely composed of Indians, who lived in a manner but very little different from that of their ancestors at the time of the conquest. Cuença was the place next in importance to the capital; and there, or in its neighborhood, the chief labors of the commission were transacted. They were conducted under difficulties as great as those of their colleagues in the frozen regions of the north, but of a different sort. The inhabitants of the country were jealous of the French commissioners, and supposed them to be either heretics or sorcerers, and to have come in search of gold-mines. Even persons connected with the administration employed themselves in stirring up the minds of the people, till at last, in a riotous assemblage at a bullfight, the surgeon of the French commissioners was killed. After tedious and troublesome legal proceedings, the perpetrators were let off with a nominal punishment. Notwithstanding every difficulty, the commissioners completed their work in a satisfactory manner, spending in all eight years in the task, including the voyages out and home. The commissioners who had made the northern measurements reported the length of the degree at 66° north latitude to be 57.422 toises; Messrs. Bouguer and La Condamine, the equatorial degree, 56.753 toises; showing a difference of 669 toises, or 4,389-¾ feet. The difference, as corrected by later measurements, is stated by recent authorities at 3,662 English feet; by which amount the polar degree exceeds the equatorial. Thus Newton's theory was confirmed.