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The Moniteur of the 11th contains a long letter tothe Editor from M. De Humboldt, in which he bringsa charge of plagiarism against Mr. Arrowsmith, a well-known English Geographer.
After some prefatory observations, M. De H. pro-ceeds as follows:—
“I was engaged during four years in the constructionof a map of Mexico, which was published at Paris, inSeptember, 1809, in two large sheets, in my ‘Geogra-phical and Physical Atlas of the Kingdom of NewSpain.’ I had first drawn it up in Mexico, in 1803,and it was engraved at Paris by M. M. Aubert andBarriere: it was entitled ‘General Map of the King-dom of New Spain, drawn up from astronomicalobservations, and the whole of the materialswhich existed in Mexico, at the commencementof the year 1804, by Alexander De Humboldt.’The astronomical observations, the geodesic surveys,and the barometrical admeasurements of heights whichI made in the course of my travels in the equinoctialregions of the new Continent, from 1799 to 1803, areto be found in the second volume of my “Collection ofAstronomical Observations,” published conjointly withM. Oltmanns. The numerous and unpublished mate-rials which assisted in the construction of the 20 mapscontained in the Mexican atlas, are indicated and dis-cussed in an analysis prefixed to my Political Essay onthe kingdom of New Spain.
“All these long and painful labours, however im-perfect they appear to me, Mr. Arrowsmith has en-tirely appropriated to himself; he faithfully copied mygeneral map of Mexico, and published it in London, be-fore the appearance of the English translation of myPolitical Essay; and he substituted his own nameinstead of mine, under the title of “New map of Mexico,
compiled from original documents, by Arrowsmith.”The positions of the towns, of the villages and mines,
|[4]| the boundaries of the intendances, the ranges of moun-tains, the indications of the heights in toises, the noteson the migrations of the Azteques, and on the history ofnavigation, the small arrows annexed to a number ofrivers, every thing, in short, is to be found in the copy ofMr. Arrowsmith. I was obliged to employ several newsigns, for instance, two hammers placed crosswise todenote the chief station of a provincial council of themines; and Mr. Arrowsmith, in adopting my signshas also adopted their explanation; he has copied without translating, and without changing a single wordon his English map he has engraved my explanationsin French, always leaving out the sign pointing to theplaces where I made astronomical observations.If my name is looked for in the copy of the great mapit is only to be found in one of the three squares whichcontain the same number of sketches borrowed frommy Mexican Atlas. These small squares present hy-drographic plans of the ports of Vera Cruz and Aca-pulco, and the chart of the valley of Mexico. To thewords “Valléy of Mexico,” Mr. Arrowsmith has thoughtfit to annex the following words, “from M. Humboldt’sMap.” But the only thing which Mr. Arrowsmithchooses to ascribe to me is not my own: it was a plandrawn up by D. Louis Martin, in 1804.”
After a variety of other observations, M. de Hum-bolt adds: “This silence with regard to the sources oftheir information is become too common with geogra-phers, particularly with those who do not accompanytheir maps with analytical memoirs on the subject oftheir construction, though a very different example hasbeen given by the most distinguished of that class of li-terary men, such as d’Anville, Dalrymple, Fleuriu, andRennell.”
M. de H. concludes with expressing his hope, thatthe reclamations of a traveller will meet with some at-tention, when he proves that more copies of his laboursare disseminated under the name of another person. Theletter itself is written with every appearance of candeur,and deserves the attention of those who it concerns.
