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Antiqua
Antiqua (mit lang-s); Auszeichnung: Kursivierung, Kapitälchen; Fußnoten mit Asterisken; Schmuck: Initialen.
The interest which the learned world so justly takes in
the travels of Messrs.
my friendship for them, impose on me the agreeable obli-
gation of giving an abstract of what I have been able to
learn respecting them, either from their public and private
correspondence, or from the memoirs read in the Institute.
This account will be short, but correct.
After making physical researches for eight years in Ger-
many, Poland, England, France, Swisserland, and Italy,
M.
of Natural History afforded him an opportunity of making
a voyage round the world with captain
the point of setting out for Havre, with
Goujou Bonpland
Garden of Plants, the war which recommenced with Austria,
and the want of funds, induced the Directory to put off the
voyage of
boldt, who since 1792 had conceived the design of under-
taking, at his own expense, a voyage to the tropics, in order
to promote the physical sciences, resolved then to accom-
pany the men of science who were destined for
battle of Aboukir having interrupted all direct communi-
cation with
a Swedish frigate which was to carry the consul Seziolde-
and to proceed to India by
but the war, which broke out in an unexpected manner
in the month of October 1798, between France and the
Barbary powers, and the troubles in the East, prevented
M.
waited to no purpose for two months. Impatient at this
new delay, but always firm in the project of joining the
expedition in
be able to proceed more easily under the Spanish flag from
Carthagena to
drid through Montpellier, Perpignan,
lentia; but the news from the East became every day more
distressing. The war there was carried on with unexampled
fury, and he was at length obliged to renounce the design
of going through
of circumstances soon indemnified M.
delay. In the month of March 1799, the court of Madrid
granted him full permission to proceed to the
nies in both the Americas
as might be useful to the sciences. His catholic majesty even
deigned to show particular interest for the success of this
expedition; and M.
at Madrid and
accompanied by his friend
sive knowledge of botany and zoology to that indefatigable
zeal and love for the sciences which induce men to submit
with indifference to every kind of hardship.
With this friend M.
at his own expense, between the tropics, passing over, by
sea and land, nearly 9000 leagues. These two travellers,
provided with recommendations from the court of Spain,
embarked in the
naries. They touched at the island of Graciosa, near Lan-
cerotta, and at Teneriff, where they ascended to the crater of
the peak, in order to analyse the atmospheric air, and make
geological observations on the basaltes and porphyritic schist
of
Cumana, in the gulph of Cariaco, a part of
celebrated by the labours and misfortunes of the indefatiga-
ble
the coast of Paria, the Indian missions of Chaymas, and
the province of New Andalusia, one of the hottest, but at
the same time healthiest, countries in the world, though
convulsed by dreadful and frequent earthquakes. They
traversed the provinces of
mana, Caraccas, and several other points by observations
of the satellites of Jupiter; after collecting plants on the
summits of Caripe and Silla de Befaria,
they set out for the capital of Caraccas in February 1800,
and the beautiful valleys of
of Valentia calls to remembrance that of Geneva, but em-
bellished by the majestic vegetation of the tropics.
From Portocabello they proceeded south, penetrating
from the coast of the
daries of Brazil towards the
the immense plains of Calabozo,
noko; the Llanos, deserts similar to those of
by the reverberation of the heat, but under the shade,
mur’s
scorching soil, for more than 2000 leagues, differs in its
level only five inches. The sand, similar to the horizon at
sea, exhibits every where the most curious phænomena of
refraction and elevation. Without any vegetation, in the
dry months it affords shelter to the crocodile and the torpid
boa.
The want of water, the heat of the sun, and the dust
raised by the scorching winds, harass in turns the traveller,
who directs himself and mule by the course of the stars, or
by some scattered trunks of the mauritia and embothrium
which are discovered every three or four leagues.
At
Messrs.
gation of nearly 500 nautical leagues in canoes, during
which they made a chart of the country by the help of
timekeepers, the satellites, and lunar distances. They de-
scended the
the latitude of seven degrees. Having escaped from the
danger of imminent shipwreck near the island of Pana-
numa, they ascended the latter river as far as the mouth of
the Rio Guaviare, passing the famous cataracts of
and Maypure, where the cavern of
mies of a nation destroyed by the war of the Caribs and
Maravitains. From the mouth of the Rio Guaviare, which
descends from the
ther
noko, they quitted the latter and ascended the small rivers
From the mission of Javita they proceeded by land to the
sources of the Guainia, which the Europeans call the Rio
Negro, and which
Indians carried their canoes through bushy trees of hevea,lecythis, and the laurus cinnamomoides, to Cano Pimichin.
By this small stream our travellers proceeded to the Rio Ne-
gro, which they descended as far as the small fortress of San
Carlos, which has been erroneously believed to be situated
under the
Para, the captainry-general of Brazil. A canal from Temi
to Pimichin, which on account of the level nature of the
ground is very practicable, would form an interior com-
munication between the province of Caraccas and the ca-
pital of Para much shorter than that of Casquiare. By this
canal also, such is the astonishing disposition of the rivers
in this new continent, one might descend in a canoe from
Rio Guallaga, within three days journey of Lima, or the
South Sea, by the
the mouths of the Orenoko opposite to Trinidad, a navi-
gation of nearly 2000 leagues. The misunderstanding which
prevailed then between the courts of Madrid and Lisbon
prevented M.
yond St. Gabriel de las Cochuellas, in the captainry-general
of Great Para.
nomically
nomically
less sensible, and it remained to fix a part more unknown,
which is the arm of the Orenoko called Casquiare, form-
ing the communication between the Orenoko and the
Amazon
been so many disputes for fifty years past. To execute this
labour, Messrs.
Spanish fortress of St. Carlos along the Rio Negro and the
Casquiare to the Orenoko, and on the latter to the mission
of Esmeraldo, near the volcano Duida, or as far as the sources
of that river.
The Guaica Indians, a very white, small, and almost
pigmy race of men, but exceedingly warlike, who inhabit
the country to the east of the Pasimoni; and the Guajaribes,
of a dark copper colour, extremely ferocious, and still an-
thropophagi, render fruitless every attempt to reach the
sources of the Orenoko, which the maps of
in other respects meritorious, place in a longitude much too
far east.
From the mission of Esmeralda, an assemblage of huts
situated in the most remote and most solitary corner of this
Indian world, our travellers descended, with the assistance
of the floods, 340 leagues; that is to say, the whole of the
Nueva Guyana or
cataracts, to the south of which the two historiographers of
these countries, father
In the course of this long and painful navigation, the
want of food and shelter; the nocturnal rains; living in
the woods; the mosquitoes, and a multitude of other sting-
ing and venomous insects; the impossibility of cooling
themselves by the bath, on account of the ferocity of the
crocodile and of the small carib fish; together with the
miasmata of a hot and damp climate, exposed our travellers
to continual suffering. They returned from the Orenoko to
sions of the Carib Indians, a very extraordinary race of
men, and, next to the Patagonians, the tallest and most
robust perhaps in the world.
After a stay of some months on the coast, they proceeded
to the Havannah by the south of St. Domingo and Jamaica.
This navigation, performed when the season was far ad-
vanced, was both long and dangerous, the vessel having
been in great danger of being lost on the
the position of which M.
timekeeper. He staid in the island of Cuba three months,
during which time he employed himself on the longitude
of the Havannah, and the construction of a new kind of
stove in the sugar-houses, which was speedily and gene-
rally adopted. When on the point of setting out for La
Vera Cruz, intending to proceed by the way of Mexico
and
by Bombay,
false intelligence respecting the voyage of captain
alarmed him, and induced him to alter his plan. The
American papers announced that this navigator would set
out from France for Buenos-Ayres, and that after doubling
Cape Horn he would proceed along the coasts of Chili and
Peru.
M.
in 1798, had promised to the Museum and to captain
din
would endeavour to join the French expedition as soon as
he should hear of its having been set on foot. He flattered
himself that his researches and those of
more useful to the progress of the sciences if they united
their labours to those of the men of science who were to
accompany captain
M.
in the port of
Indies, and thence, as soon as possible, by the isthmus of
Panama to the South Sea. He hoped to find captain
at Guyaquil or at Lima, and to visit New Holland and the
islands of the Pacific Ocean, so interesting in a moral point
of view, and by the richness of their vegetation.
It appeared to him imprudent to expose the manuscripts
and collections already formed to the dangers of this long
navigation. The manuscripts, respecting the fate of which
M.
years, till his arrival at Philadelphia, were saved; but a
third of the collections were lost at sea by shipwreck: for-
tunately this loss, and that of some insects from the Ore-
noko and Rio Negro, extended only to duplicates; but
this shipwreck proved fatal to a friend to whom M. Hum-
boldt had intrusted his plants and insects, Fray
zales
tivity, who had penetrated in this unknown world from
Spanish Guyana much farther than any other European.
M.
coasting along the south side of the island of Cuba, and
determining astronomically several points in that group of
small isles called the King’s Gardens, and the approaches
to the port of Trinidad. A navigation which ought to have
been only thirteen or fifteen days, was prolonged by cur-
rents beyond a month. The galliot was carried by them
too far east, beyond the mouths of the
touched at Rio Sinu, where no botanist had ever searched
for plants; but they found it difficult to land at Carthagena,
on account of the violence of the breakers of St. Martha.
The galliot had almost gone to pieces near Giant’s Point;
they were obliged to save themselves towards the shore in
order to anchor; and this disappointment gave M. Hum-
boldt an opportunity of observing the eclipse of the moon
on the 2d of March 1801. Unfortunately they learned on
this coast that the season for navigating the South Sea from
Panama to Guyaquil was already too far advanced: it was
necessary to give up the design of crossing the isthmus;
and the desire of seeing the celebrated
mining his immense treasures in natural history, induced
M.
baco, ornamented with gustavia, toluifera, anacardium ca-racoli, and the Cavanillesca
to ascend in thirty-five days the beautiful and majestic river
of the Magdalen, of which he sketched out a chart, though
vegetation, rich in heliconia, psychostria, melastoma, my-rodia, and dychotria emetica, the root of which is the ipe-
cacuanha of Carthagena.
Having landed at Honda, our travellers proceeded on
mules, the only way of travelling in
by frightful roads through forests of oaks, melastoma and
cinchona, to Santa Fé de Bagota, the capital of the kingdom
of New Grenada, situated in a beautiful plain 1360 toises
above the level of the sea, and, in consequence of a perpe-
tual spring temperature, abounding in the wheat of Europe
and the sesamum of Asia. The superb collections of
the grand and sublime cataract of Tequendama, 98 toises
or 588 feet in height; the mines of Mariquita, St. Ana,
and Zipaguira; the natural bridge of Icononzo, two de-
tached rocks which by means of an earthquake have been
disposed in such a manner as to support a third; occupied
the attention of our travellers at Santa Fé till September
1801.
Though the rainy season had now rendered the roads al-
most impassable, they set out for Quito; they re-descended
by Fusagasuga, in the valley of Magdalena, and passed the
amidst forests of styrax passiflora in trees, bambusa, and
wax palms. For thirteen days they were obliged to drag
themselves through horrid mud, and to sleep, as on the
Orenoko, under the bare heavens, in woods where they saw
no vestiges of man. When they arrived, bare-footed and
drenched with continual rain, in the valley of the river
Cauca, they stopped at Cathago and Buga, and proceeded
along the province of Choco, the country of platina, which
is found between rolled fragments of basaltes, filled with
olivin and augite, green rock (the grunstein of
and fossil wood.
They ascended by Caloto and Quilichao, where gold is
washed, to Popayan, visited by
to France, and situated at the bottom of the snowy volca-
noes of Puracé and Sotara, one of the most picturesque
situations and in the most delightful climate of the uni-
verse, where
tween 17 and 19 degrees. When they had reached, with
much difficulty, the crater of the volcano of Puracé, filled
with boiling water, which from the midst of the snow
throws up, with a horrid roaring, vapours of sulphurated
hydrogen, our travellers passed from Popayan by the steep
air of the valley of Patia.
From Pasto, a town situated at the bottom of a burning
volcano, they traversed by Guachucal the high plateau of
the province of Pastos, separated from the Pacific Ocean
by the
celebrated by its great fertility in wheat and the erytroxy-lon Peruvianum, called cocoa. At length, after a journey
of four months on mules, they arrived at the towns of
Ibarra and Quito. This long passage through the cordillera
of the high
impassable, and during which they were exposed to rains
which continued seven or eight hours a day, encumbered
with a great number of instruments and voluminous collec-
tions, would have been almost impossible, without the ge-
nerous and kind assistance of M.
Santa Fé, and the baron
who, being equally zealous for the progress of science,
caused the roads and the most dangerous bridges to be re-
paired on a route of 450 leagues in length.
Messrs.
January 1802 at Quito, a capital celebrated in the annals
of astronomy by the labours of
also by the great amiableness of its inhabitants and their
happy disposition for the arts. Our travellers continued
their geological and botanical researches for eight or nine
months in the kingdom of Quito; a country rendered per-
haps the most interesting in the world by the colossal
height of its snowy summits; the activity of its volcanoes,
which in turns throw up flames, rocks, mud, and hydro-
sulphureous water; the frequency of its earthquakes, one
of which, on the 7th of February 1797, swallowed up in
a few seconds nearly 40,000 inhabitants; its vegetation;
the remains of Peruvian architecture; and, above all, the
manners of its
After two fruitless attempts, they succeeded in twice
ascending to the crater of the volcano of Pinchinca, where
they made experiments on the analysis of the air; its elec-
tric charge, magnetism, hygroscopy, electricity, and the
temperature of boiling water.
crater, which he very properly compares to the chaos of
the poets; but he was there without instruments, and could
remain only some minutes.
In his time this immense mouth, hollowed out in basaltic
found it again on fire; and this intelligence was distressing
to the town of Quito, which is distant only about four or
five thousand toises. Here M.
of losing his life. Being alone with an Indian, who was
as little acquainted with the crater as himself, and walking
over a fissure concealed by a thin stratum of congealed snow,
he had almost fallen into it.
Our travellers, during their stay in the kingdom of Quito,
made several excursions to the snowy mountains of
sana
the highest summit of our earth, and which the French
academicians measured only by approximation. They exa-
mined in particular the geognostic part of the cordillera of
the
in Europe; mineralogy, as we may say, being newer than the
voyage of
credible activity embraced every thing else that could be
interesting to the sciences. The trigonometrical and baro-
metrical measurements of M.
some of these volcanoes, and especially that of Tunguragua,
have become considerably lower since 1753; a result which
accords with what the inhabitants of Pelileo and the plains
of Tapia have observed.
M.
the work of crystallization. “Every thing I have seen,”
says he in a letter to
where the highest elevations of the globe are situated, have
confirmed me more and more in the grand idea that you
threw out in your Theory of the Earth, the most complete
work we have on that subject, in regard to the formation of
mountains. All the masses of which they consist have
united according to their affinities by the laws of attraction,
and have formed these elevations, more or less considerable
in different parts on the surface of the earth, by the laws of
general crystallization. There can remain no doubt in this
respect to the traveller who considers without prejudice
these large masses. You will see in our relations that there
is not one of the objects you treat of which we have not en-
deavoured to improve by our labours.”
In all these excursions, begun in January 1802, our travel-
lers were accompanied by M.
progress of the sciences, and who caused to be reconstructed,
at his own expense, the pyramids of Sarouguier, the boun-
daries of the celebrated base of the French and Spanish aca-
panied M.
Peru and the kingdom of Mexico, proceeded with him to
Europe. The efforts of these three travellers were so much
favoured by circumstances, that they reached the greatest
heights to which man had ever attained in these mountains.
On the volcano of
and on Chimborazo June 23, 1802, 3300 feet higher than
the height of 3036 toises above the level of the Pacific
Ocean, where the blood issued from their eyes, lips, and
gums, and where they experienced a cold not indicated by
the thermometer, but which arose from the little caloric
disengaged during the inspiration of air so much rarefied.
A fissure eighty toises in depth and of great breadth pre-
vented them from reaching the top of Chimborazo when
they were distant from it only about 224 toises.
[To be continued.]
During his residence at Quito M.
letter from the French National Institute, informing him
that captain
an easterly course by the Cape of Good Hope. He found
it necessary therefore to give up all idea of joining him,
though our travellers had entertained this hope for thirteen
months, by which means they lost the advantage of an easy
passage from the Havannah to Mexico and the Philippines.
It had made them travel by sea and by land more than a
thousand leagues to the south, exposed to every extreme of
temperature, from summits covered with perpetual snow to
the bottom of those profound ravines where the thermo-
meter stands night and day between 25° and 31° of
mur
they readily consoled themselves on account of their fate.
They were once more sensible that man must depend only
on what can be produced by his own energy; and
voyage, or rather the false intelligence of the direction he
had taken, made them traverse immense countries towards
which no naturalist perhaps would otherwise have turned
his researches. M.
his own expedition, proceeded from Quito towards the river
Amazon and Lima, with a view of making the important
observation of the transit of Mercury over the sun’s disk.
Our travellers first visited the ruins of Lactacunga,
Hambato, and Riobamba, a district convulsed by the
dreadful earthquake of the year 1797. They passed through
the snows of Assonay to Cuenca, and thence with great
difficulty, on account of the carriage of their instruments
and packages of plants, by the paramo of Saraguro to
Loxa. It was here, in the forests of Gonzanama and Ma-
lacates, that they studied the valuable tree which first made
known to man the febrifuge qualities of cinchona. The
extent of the territory which their travels embraced, gave
them an advantage never before enjoyed by any botanist,
namely, that of comparing the different kinds of cinchona
of Santa Fé, Popayan, Cuenca, Loxa, and Jaen, with the
cuspa and cuspare of Cumana and Rio Carony, the latter
of which, named improperly Cortex angusturæ, appears to
pentandria monogynia, with
alternate leaves.
From Loxa they entered Peru by
bamba, traversing the high summit of the
ceed to the
times in the course of two days the river Chamaya, some-
times on a raft, and sometimes by fording. They saw the
superb remains of the causeway of Ynga, which may be
compared to the most beautiful causeways in France and
Spain, and which proceeds on the porphyritic ridge of the
tambo (inns) and public fountains. They then embarked
on a raft of ochroma, at the small Indian village of Cha-
maya, and descended by the river of the same name, to that
of the
stars, and by the difference of time, the astronomical posi-
tion of that confluence.
to France, embarked on the
Quebrada
de Chucunga; he therefore observed the longi-
tude only at the
mouth of the Rio Napo. M.
endeavoured to supply this deficiency in the beautiful chart
of the French astronomer, navigating the
far as the
cataracts of Rentema, and forming at Tomependa,
the capital of
the province of Jaen de Bracamorros, a de-
tailed plan of that
unknown part of the Upper Maranon,
both from his own
observations and the information ob-
tained from Indian
travellers. M.
time made an interesting excursion to the forests around
the town of Jaen, where he discovered new species of cin-
chona; and after greatly suffering from the scorching heat
of these solitary districts, and admiring a vegetation rich
in
new species of Jacquinia, Godoya,
Porteria, Bougainvillea,Colletia, and Pisonia, our
three travellers crossed for the
fifth time the cordillera of
the
to return to Peru.
They fixed the point where
zero of the magnetic inclination, though at 7 degrees of
south latitude. They examined the mines of Hualguayoc,
where native silver is found in large masses at the height of
2000 toises above the level of the sea, in mines, some
metalliferous veins of which contain petrified shells, and
which, with those of Huantajayo, are at present the richest
of Peru. From Caxamarca, celebrated by its thermal
waters, and by the ruins of the palace of
descended to Truxillo, in the neighbourhood of which are
ornamented with pyramids, in one of which was discovered,
in the eighteenth century, hammered gold to the value of
more than 150,000 l. sterling.
On this western declivity of the
joyed, for the first time, the striking view of the Pacific
Ocean; and from that long and narrow valley, the inhabi-
tants of which are unacquainted with rain or thunder, and
where, under a happy climate, the most absolute power,
and that most dangerous to man, theocracy itself, seems
to imitate the beneficence of nature.
From Truxillo they followed the dry coasts of the South
Sea, formerly watered and rendered fertile by the canals of
the Ynga; nothing of which remains but melancholy
ruins. When they arrived, by Santa and Guarmey, at Lima,
they remained some months in that interesting capital of
Peru, the inhabitants of which are distinguished by the
vivacity of their genius and the liberality of their sentiments.
M.
complete manner, at the port of Callao at Lima, the end
of the transit of Mercury: a circumstance the more fortu-
nate, as the thick fog which prevails at that season often
prevents the sun’s disk from being seen for twenty days.
He was astonished to find in Peru, at so immense a distance
from Europe, the newest literary productions in chemistry,
mathematics, and physiology; and he admired the great
intellectual activity of a people whom the Europeans accuse
of indolence and luxury.
In the month of January 1803 our travellers embarked in
the king’s corvette La Castora for Guyaquil; a passage which
is performed, by the help of the winds and the currents, in
three or four days, whereas the return from Guyaquil re-
quires as many months. In the former port, situated on
the banks of an immense river, the vegetation of which in
palms, plumeria, tabernæmontana, and scitamineæ, is ma-
jestic beyond all description. They heard growling every
moment the volcano of Catopaxi, which made a dreadful
explosion on the 6th of January 1803.
They immediately set out that they might have a nearer
view of its ravages, and to visit it a second time; but the
unexpected news of the sudden departure of the Atlanta
frigate, and the fear of not finding another opportunity for
several months, obliged them to return, after being tor-
mented for seven days by the mosquitoes of
Ugibar.
They had a favourable navigation of thirty days on the
dom of New Spain, celebrated by the beauty of its bason,
which appears to have been cut out in the granite rocks by
the violence of earthquakes; celebrated also by the wretch-
edness of its inhabitants, who see there millions of piastres
embarked for the Philippines and China; and unfortunately
celebrated by a climate as scorching as mortal.
M.
in Mexico, and to hasten his return to Europe; his travels
had already been too long; the instruments, and particularly
the time-keepers, began to be gradually deranged; and all
the efforts he had made to get new ones had proved fruit-
less. Besides, the progress of the sciences in Europe is
so rapid, that in travels of more than four years a traveller
may see certain phænomena under points of view which are
no longer interesting when his labours are presented to the
public.
M.
in England in the months of August or September 1803;
but the attraction of a country so beautiful and so variegated
as the kingdom of New Spain, the great hospitality of its
inhabitants, and the dread of the yellow fever at Vera Cruz,
which cuts off almost all those who between the months
of June and October come down from the mountains, in-
duced him to defer his departure till the middle of winter.
After having occupied his attention with plants, the state
of the air, the hourly variations of the barometer, the phæ-
nomena of the magnet, and in particular the longitude of
travellers set out for Mexico. They ascended gradually from
the scorching valleys of Mescala and Papagayo, where the
thermometer in the shade stood at 32° of
where they passed the river on the fruit of the crescentiapinnata, bound together by ropes of agave, to the high
plateaux of Chilpantzingo, Tehuilotepec and Tasco.
At these heights of six or seven hundred toises above the
level of the sea, in consequence of the mildness and cool-
ness of the climate, the oak, cypress, fir, and fern, begin
to be seen, together with the kinds of grain cultivated in
Europe.
Having spent some time in the mines of Tasco, the oldest
and formerly the richest in the kingdom, and having studied
the nature of those silvery veins which pass from the hard
calcareous rock to micaceous schist and inclose foliaceous
gypsum, they ascended, by Cuernaraca and the cold regions
has 150,000 inhabitants, and stands on the site of the old
Tenochtitlan, between the lakes of Tezcuco and Xochimilo,
which have decreased in size since the Spaniards, to lessen
the danger of inundations, have opened the mountains of
Sincoc, is intersected by broad straight streets. It stands
in sight of two snowy mountains, one of which is named
Popocatepec; and of a volcano still burning; and, at the
height of 1160 toises, enjoys a temperate and agreeable cli-
mate: it is surrounded by canals, walks bordered with trees,
a multitude of Indian hamlets, and without doubt may be
compared to the finest cities of Europe. It is distinguished
also by its large scientific establishments, which may vie
with several of the old continent, and to which there are
none similar in the new.
The botanical garden, directed by that excellent botanist
M.
panied by able draftsmen, and whose object is to acquire
a knowledge of the plants of Mexico; the School of Mines,
established by the liberality of the corps of miners and by
the creative genius of M.
Painting, Engraving, and Sculpture; all tend to diffuse
taste and knowledge in a country the riches of which
seem to oppose intellectual culture.
With instruments taken from the excellent collection of
the School of Mines, M.
gitude of Mexico, in which there was an error of nearly
two degrees, as has been confirmed by corresponding ob-
servations of the satellites made at the Havannah.
After a stay of some months in that capital, our travellers
visited the celebrated mines of Moran and Real-del-Monte,
where the vein of La Biscayna has given millions of piastres
to the counts De Regla; they examined the obsidian stones
of Oyamel, which form strata in the pearl stone and por-
phyry, and served as knives to the
whole of this country, filled with basaltes, amygdaloids,
and calcareous and secondary formations, from the large
cavern of Danto, traversed by a river to the porphyritic
rocks of Actopan, presents phænomena interesting to the
geologue, which have been already examined by M.
the pupil of
logists of the present day.
On their return from their excursion to Moran in July
1803, they undertook another to the northern part of the
kingdom. At first they directed their researches to Hue-
huetoca, where, at the expense of six millions of piastres,
drain off the waters from the valley of Mexico to the river
Montezuma. They then passed Queretaro, by Salamanca
and the fertile plains of Yrapuato, to Guanaxuato, a town
which contains 50,000 inhabitants: it is situated in a narrow
defile, and celebrated by its mines, which are of far greater
consequence than those of Potosi.
The mine of count de Valenciana, which has given birth
to a considerable town on a hill which thirty years age
scarcely afforded pasture to goats, is already 1840 feet in
perpendicular depth. It is the deepest and richest in the
world; the annual profit of the proprietors having never
been less than three millions of livres, and it sometimes
amounts to five or six.
After two months employed in measurements and geo-
logical researches, and after having examined the thermal
waters of Comagillas, the temperature of which is 11° of
lers proceeded through the valley of St. Jago, where they
thought they saw in several lakes at the summits of the ba-
saltic mountains so many craters of burnt-out volcanoes, to
Valladolid, the capital of the
can. They thence descended, notwithstanding the con-
tinual autumnal rains, by Patzquaro, situated on the margin
of a very extensive lake towards the coast of the Pacific
Ocean, to the plains of Jorullo, where in the course of one
night in 1759, during one of the greatest convulsions which
the globe ever experienced, there issued from the earth a
volcano 1494 feet in height, surrounded by more than
2000 mouths still emitting smoke. They descended into
the burning crater of the great volcano to the perpendicular
depth of 258 feet, jumping over fissures which exhaled
flaming sulphurated hydrogen gas. After great danger,
arising from the brittleness of the basaltic and sienitic lava,
they reached nearly the bottom of the crater, and analysed
the air in it, which was found to be surcharged in an extra-
ordinary manner with carbonic acid.
From the kingdom of Michoacan, one of the most agree-
able and most fertile countries in the Indies, they returned
to Mexico by the high plateau of Tolucca, in which they
measured the snowy mountain of the same name, ascending
to its highest summit, the peak of Fraide, which rises 2364
toises above the level of the sea: they visited also at Toluc-
ca the famous hand-tree the cheiranthostæmon of M.
vantes
which has existed since the remotest antiquity.
On their return to the capital of Mexico they remained
there several months to arrange their herbals, abundant in
gramineous plants, and their geological collections; to cal-
culate their barometric and trigonometrical measurements
performed in the course of that year; and in particular to
make fair drawings of the geological atlas, which M. Hum-
boldt proposes to publish.
Their return furnished them also with an opportunity of
assisting at the erection of the colossal equestrian statue of
the king, which one artist, M. Tolsa, overcoming diffi-
culties of which a proper idea cannot be formed in Europe,
modelled, cast, and erected on a very high pedestal: it is
wrought in the simplest style, and would be an ornament to
the finest capitals in Europe.
In January 1804 our travellers left Mexico to explore the
eastern declivity of the cordillera of New Spain: they mea-
sured geometrically the two volcanoes of Puebla, Popoca-
tepec and Itzaccihuatl. According to a fabulous tradition,
suspended by ropes, in order to collect sulphur, which may
be found every where in the plains.
M.
on which M.
the courage to ascend 2557 toises, is higher than the peak
of Orizaba, which has hitherto been considered the highest
colossus of the country of
great pyramid of Cholula, a mysterious work constructed
of unbaked brick by the Tultequas, and from the summit
of which there is a most beautiful view over the snowy
summits and smiling plains of Tlaxcala.
After these researches they descended by Perote to Xa-
lapa, a town situated at the height of 674 toises above the
level of the sea, at a mean height at which the inhabitants
enjoy the fruits of all climates, and a temperature equally
mild and beneficial to the health of man. It was here that,
by the kindness of Mr.
dividual, who to a large fortune adds a taste for the sciences,
our travellers found every facility imaginable for performing
their operations in the neighbouring mountains.
The level of the horrid road which leads from Xalapa to
Perote, through almost impenetrable forests of oaks and firs,
and which has begun to be converted into a magnificent
causeway, was three times taken with the barometer.
M.
the famous Cofre, which is 162 toises higher than the peak
of Teneriffe, and fixed its position by direct observations.
He measured also trigonometrically the peak of Orizava,
which the Indians call Sitlaltepetl, because the luminous
exhalations of its crater resemble at a distance a falling star,
and respecting the longitude of which M.
very exact operations.
After an interesting residence in these countries, where,
under the shade of the liquidambar and amyris, are found
growing the epidendrum vanilla and convolvulus jalappa,
two productions equally valuable for exportation, our tra-
vellers descended towards the coast of Vera Cruz, situated
between hills of shifting sand, the reverberation of which
causes a suffocating heat; but happily escaped the yellow
fever, which prevailed there at the time.
They proceeded in a Spanish frigate to the Havannah to
get the collections and herbals left there in 1800, and, after
a stay of two months, embarked for the United States: but
they were exposed to great danger in the channel of the Ba-
hamas from a hurricane which lasted seven days.
After a passage of thirty-two days they arrived at Phila-
delphia; remained in that city and in Washington two
months; and returned to Europe in August 1804 by the
way of Bourdeaux with a great number of drawings, thirty-
five boxes of collections, and 6000 species of plants.