MEMOIR OF DON JOSE CELESTINO MUTIS.

Translated from the French of the Baron de Humboldt, by Colonel R.

WRIGHT, late Governor of the Province of Loxa, Consul General for the Republic of the Equator.

Don Jose Celestino Mutis, director of the Botanical Expedition of the kingdom of New Granada, and astronomer royal at Santa Fé de Bogota, was born in Cadiz in 1732, of a family in easy circumstances.

He is best known in Europe through his vast knowledge and researches in Botany.

Linnæus terms him, “phytologorum Americanorum princeps; but the services he has rendered to all the branches of natural history, — the discovery of the quinquinas in regions where their existence was unknown, the beneficent influence which he has exercised upon the civilisation and enlightenment of the Spanish colonies, assign to him a distinguished station amongst the men who have illustrated the new world.

Now the republic.

After having applied himself with uncommon ardour to the study of mathematics, Mutis was forced by his parents to direct his attention to practical medicine, and pursued his courses at the college of San Fernando de Cadiz; he took his degrees at Sevilla, and, in 1757, was named substitute of a chair of anatomy at Madrid.

During a sojourn of three years in the Spanish capital, he took more delight in botanical excursions than in visiting the hospitals, and he had the rare good fortune of acquiring the acquaintance of the celebrated naturalist of Upsal, who was desirous of adding to his herbal collection the plants of the Peninsula.

This correspondence of Mutis with Linnæus became of still greater importance to science, inasmuch as the viceroy, Don Pedro Mexia de la Cerda engaged the former to accompany him to America in the quality of physician, 1750.

Our young botanist had been named by the ministry amongst the persons selected to terminate their studies at Paris, Leyden and Bologna, but he did not hesitate a moment in sacrificing the prospect of visiting the most renowned universities of Europe, to the advantages and attractions of a distant expedition.

On his arrival at New Granada, he was vividly struck with the natural richness of a country where different climates are encountered in progressive succession, one above another, with the regularity of a flight of stairs.

After remaining for a long period in Carthagena, Turbaco, and Honda, (chief port of the river Magdelena), Mutis accompanied the viceroy on his journey to Bogota, situate on the table land 1365 toises above the level of the sea, and possessing a temperature similar to that of Bordeaux.

Between Honda and Bogota he passed through forests containing precious species of the cinchona (quinquina), but until the year 1772, he had not given his attention to this useful production.

Of the Andes.

Named Professor of Mathematics in the “Colegio Mayor de nuestra Senora del Rosario, he circulated at Sante Fé de Bogota, the first notions of the true planetary system. The Dominican Friars did not behold without inquietude that “the Heresies of Copernicus, already professed by Bouguer, Godin, and La Condamine at Quito, should penetrate into New Granada; but the viceroy protected Mutis against the monks, who would have the earth remain immoveable; they, however, slowly accustomed themselves to what they yet call the “hypotheses of the new philosophy.”

Mutis, anxious to examine the plants of the warm region, and to visit the argentiferous mines of New Granada, quitted the table land of Bogota.

He made a long stay, first at La Montuosa, between Giron and Pamplona, and subsequently (from 1777 to 1782) at Real del Zapo, and Mariquita, situate at the foot of the Quindio Andes and Paramo of Herveo.

It was at La Montuosa that he commenced the “Grand Flore de la Nouvelle Grenade,” a botanical work at which he laboured without intermission for the space of forty years, and which we have reason to fear, never will be published in a complete form.

Linnæus, in his supplement of Species Plantarum, and in his Mantissa, has named a great number of rare species which Mutis remitted him from La Montuosa, but by a strange, and for the geography of plants, most unfortunate error, he has noted them as coming from Mexico.

The trifling sums which our traveller earned by the practice of his art, sometimes at the mines, he expended in the formation of a botanic library, in the purchase of barometers, geodætical instruments, and glasses to observe the occultations of Jupiter’s satellites.

He engaged artists to draw the most curious plants, and who painted in oil the indigenous animals almost all as large as life.

The author of this article has seen a part of this collection, formed before Mutis had become the object of his sovereign’s munificence.

It was also during his sojourn at Real del Zapo (1786), that he made the important discovery of a quicksilver mine near Ibague Viejo, between the Nevada de Tolima and the river Saldane.

So much useful exertion met at length with honourable encouragement.

The court of Madrid, at the instance of the viceroy, Archbishop Don Antonio Caballero y Gongora, resolved (1782) upon founding, first at Mariquita, and afterwards (1790) at Santa Fé de Bogota, a grand establishment of natural history, under the name of “Expedicion Real Botanica,” at the head of which was placed Don Celestino Mutis.

An immense edifice of the capital was destined for this establishment.

He included the herbaria, school of design, and library, one of the richest and most beautiful ever consecrated to such a purpose even in Europe, in one sole branch of natural history.

Mutis had embraced the ecclesiastical state since the year 1772, and was named canon of the metropolitan church of Santa Fé and Confessor to a convent of nuns.

Zealous in the discharge of the duties he had imposed upon himself, he found no leisure to extend his excursions beyond the vicinity of the capital, but he despatched the artists attached to the “Expedicion,” to the warm and temperate regions which surround the table land of Bogota.

Some Spanish artists, whose talents had been perfected by the councils of Mutis, formed, in a very few years, a school of young painters.

The Indians, coloured, and indigenous natives of mixed blood, shewed an extraordinary disposition to imitate the form and colour of the plants.

The drawings of the Flore de Bogota were executed on the largest sized paper; they chose the branches which were most laden with flowers; the analysis or anatomy of the fructified parts was subjoined at the foot of the drawing—generally, each plant was represented on three or four large sheets in colours and in black at the same time.

The colours were extracted partly from indigenous colouring matter unknown in Europe.

Never was a collection of drawings executed with greater splendour, nor, it may be said, on a larger scale.

Mutis had taken for his model the most admired botanical works of his time, those of Jacquin, of L’Heritier, and the Abbé Cavanilles.

The aspect of the vegetation and physiognomy of the plants, were pourtrayed with astonishing fidelity.

Modern botanists who study the affinity of vegetables according to the insertion and adherence of the organs would have wished for a more detailed analysis of the fruit and seed.

When MM.

de Humboldt and Bonpland were at Bogota in 1801, and enjoyed the noble hospitality of Mutis, the latter estimated the number of drawings already finished at 2000, amongst which 43 species of the passiflora and 123 species of orchideous plants, deserved particular admiration.

Those travellers were the more surprised at the richness of Mutis’s botanic collections (formed by himself and his estimable pupils MM.

Valenzuela, Zea, Caldas, and his chief painters MM.

Rizo and Mathis), as the most fertile countries of New Granada, the plains of Tolu and San Benito Abad, the Andes of Quindio, the provinces of Santa Martha, Antioquia, and Choco, remained yet unexplored by any botanist.

The larger the mass of materials gathered by this indefatigable savant grew, the greater the difficulties he encountered to publish the fruits of his labours.

He had copies taken of the drawings in his Flore de Bogota, with the view of sending one to Spain, and of preserving the rest at Santa Fé.

But how could it be hoped the scientific world should enjoy this immense work, when the Flora Peruviana et Chilensis of Ruiz and Pavon, notwithstanding the pecuniary succour of the Government and Colonies, hardly advanced at an extremely slow pace?

Mutis was too much attached to the establishments he had founded—he was too fond of a country which had become his second home, to undertake, at the age of 76, a return to Europe.

He continued, till his death, to accumulate materials for his work without deciding on the mode of its publication.

Accustomed to overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles, he dwelt with pleasure on the idea of establishing some day a press in his house, and of instructing his young indigenous pupils, who had learned to paint so successfully, in the art of engraving.

Notwithstanding his advanced age, he undertook, in 1802, the construction of an observatory in the centre of his garden.

It is an octagon tower, 72 feet in height, which contained, in 1808, a gnomon of 37 feet, a quarter circle by Sisons, Graham’s pendulum which La Condamine had left at Quito, two chronometers by Emery, and a few of Dollond’s telescopes.

Mutis had the good fortune not to witness the bloody revolutions which have devastated those lovely countries: he was overtaken by death 11th September, 1808, at a period when he was in the enjoyment of all the happiness that can be derived from the esteem of honest men, from literary glory, and from the certainty of having largely contributed to an improved social state in the New World, by his instruction, example, and the practice of every virtue.

We have given a brief sketch of the life of Mutis; we shall proceed to a summary mention of his labours, which embrace nearly all the branches of natural science.

Nothing remains of him but a few dissertations, printed in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Stockholm, for the year 1769, and in an excellent journal published at Santa Fé in 1794, under the title of Papel Periodico; but Linnæus’s Supplement— the works of the Abbé Cavanilles, and of M. de Humboldt—the Seminario del Nuevo Reyno de Granada, edited by M. Caldas, in 1808-9, have published a part of his observations.

We are ignorant of the fate of the manuscripts which this celebrated man left to the care of his friends and nearest relatives. M. Caldas, the director of the observatory of Santa Fé,—the favourite pupil of Mutis, Don Salvader Rizo, chief painter to the Botanic Expedition, and the greater part of the inhabitants distinguished for their talents and acquirements, were all put to death during the unhappy reaction of the metropolis.

The precious collection of paintings was sent to Spain, where had been previously remitted the inedited matter of the Flore du Perou et du Mexique.

We hope that when political agitation shall cease in the Peninsula, and in the colonies, the labours of Mutis may not remain consigned to oblivion, like those of Sesse and of Mocino.

Note by Tr.—By the Spanish general, Morillo, Caldas requested a respite for a few days to regulate “papers of interest to the world,”—the stern tyrant refused.

It was the communications which Mutis had made to Linnæus that gave him celebrity in Europe, long before the works he was preparing were known to exist.

Most of the genera, alstonia, vallea, barnadesia, escallonia, manettia, acæna, brathys, myroxylon, befaria, telipogon, brabejum, gomozia, and many others, published in Linnæus’s supplement, are due to the sagacity of the botanist of Santa Fé.

Speaking of the genus mutisia, Linnæus adds, nomen immortale quod nulla ætas unquam delebit.

It was Mutis who first made known the true characters of the genus cinchona.

As this last has become of great importance, we shall endeavour to call to mind the opinions heretofore entertained respecting the quinquinas of the New World.

La Condamine and Joseph de Jussieu had examined, in 1738, the trees of the forests of Loxa, which yield the febrifuge quina, or bark.

The first-named has published a description and drawing of the Peruvian quinquina in the Memoires de l’Academie, the same species made known by MM. Humboldt and Bonpland, under the name cinckona condaminea, and which botanists have long confounded with many other kinds, under the vague denomination of cinchona officinalis.

This cinchona condaminea, also called cascarilla fina de Loxa,* de Caxanuma, and de Urituzinga, is the species most rare, most precious, and without doubt the kind originally employed.

There are but 100 quintals exported annually from Guayaquil, a port of the South Sea.

* The whole exportation of the different species of quina from America is annually 14,000 quintals.

Linnæus had formed, since 1742, his genus cinchona, a name derived from a vice-queen of Peru.

He could only have founded the genus on the imperfect description of La Condamine.

In 1753, an intendant of the mint of Bogota (Don Miguel de Santestevan), visited the forests of Loxa, and discovered on his route, between Popayan and Quito, trees of quinquina in many quarters, especially near the village of Guanacas and the Sitio de los Corrales.

He sent samples of cinchona to Mutis, and it was upon those samples that the latter made the first exact description of the genus.

He lost no time in transmitting to Linnæus the flower and fruit of the yellow quinquina (cinchona cordifolia,) but the great naturalist of Upsal, on publishing the observations of Mutis, (Syst. Nat. ed. 12, page 164,) confounded the yellow quinquina with that which La Condamine had described.

Up to that time, Europe only received the febrifuge bark by the ports of the South Sea.

The tree which furnishes this precious production was not yet known north of the parallel of 2½° lat. boreal.

In 1772, Mutis discovered the quina within 6 leagues of Santa Fé de Bogota, in the woods of Tena.

This important discovery was quickly followed, 1773, by another of the same plant on the route from Honda to Villeta, and at the Mesa de Chinga.

We have entered into some details on this head, because the quinquina of New Granada, exported by Carthagena, and consequently by a port of the Caribbean Sea, nearer to Europe, has had the most beneficial influence on colonial industry, and on the diminution of the price of febrifuge bark in the markets of the old world.

Mutis was right when he attached great importance to this discovery, for which he was never recompensed by his government.

An inhabitant of Panama, Don Jose Lopez Ruiz, who himself acknowledges, in Informes al Rey., never to have known the quinquinas of Honda until 1774, passed a long time for the original discoverer of the quinas of Santa Fé.

He enjoyed as such a pension of 10,000 francs, until, in 1775, the viceroy of Gongona made known to the court the priority of Mutis’s rights.

About the same period, (1776) Don Francisco Renjifo found the quinquina in the southern hemisphere on the slopes of the Peruvian Andes of Guanuco. It is now to be found in the whole length of the Cordilleras, at an elevation of from 700 to 1500 toises, upon an extent of above 600 leagues, from La Paz and Chuquisaca, to the mountains of Santa Martha and Merida.

The cascarilla fina of Loxa (orange coloured and primitive), called also by the natives of Loxa, cascarilla de Urituzinga, that is, in the Quichua tongue, bear’s nose, the highland forest in which it grows, having a profile when viewed from the vallies, somewhat resembling that of a bear.—Tr.

A Port of the Republic of the Equator on the Pacific Ocean.

Mutis has the merit of having been the first to distinguish the different species of Cinchona, some of which, with downy petals, are much more active than others whose surface is smooth.

He has proved, that the active species, whose properties vary with the organic structure and form, should not be indiscriminately employed.

The Quinologia of Mutis, which is about to be published at Madrid by M. Lagasca, and of which a fragment only has been inserted in the Papel Periodico de Santa Fé de Bogota, Feb. 1794, comprises the whole of his medical and botanical researches.

That work describes a preparation of fermented quinquina, in great esteem at Bogota, Quito, and Lima, under the name of cerveza de quina (beer of quina.)

Amongst the useful plants in medicine and commerce, originally described by Mutis, we must reckon the psychotria emetica, or ipecacuanha, (raisilla) of the river Magdalena, the toluifera, and the myroxylon, which yield the balm of Tolu and of Peru—the winteria granadensis, near neighbour of the canella alba of our pharmacopœias, and the alstonia theæformis, which furnishes the tea of Bogota, the infusion of which cannot be too strongly recommended to travellers who remain any length of time exposed to the rain of the tropics.

At Mariquita, in a temperate and delicious climate, Mutis formed a small plantation of quinquina, cinnamon, (laurus cinnamomoides,) which abounds in the missions of Andaquies, and of indigenous nutmeg (myristica otova.)

The name of this celebrated botanist is also attached to a discovery which has greatly interested the public mind in America.

It was known that the Indians and negroes who worked at the lavaderos (washings) of gold and platinum, in the province of Choco, were possessed of what they called the secret of a plant, the most powerful antidote against the bite of venemous serpents.

Mutis was enabled to discover the mystery, and make the plant known: it is of the family of the compositæ, and is known in its native country by the name of vejuco del guaco. MM. Humboldt and Bonpland were the first to represent it, (v. Mikania Guaco, in the Plantæ Æquinoctiales, vol. 2, p. 85, pl. 105.) This plant has a nauseous odour, which appears to affect the olfactory organs of the vipers.

The scent of the guaco mixes itself, no doubt, with the cutaneous transpiration of man: one is considered out of danger after a space of time, more or less, when the patient has been curado, that is, when inoculation of the juice of the guaco into the dermoid system has been effected.

Bold experiments made in the house of Mutis by MM.

Zea, Vargas, and Mathis, and during which they were seen to handle with impunity the most venemous vipers, have been described in the Seminario de Agricultura of Madrid, 1798, vol. 4, p. 397.

As the guaco has been found in several of the warm vallies of the Andes, from Peru down to Carthagena, and on the mountains of Varinas, a great number of persons owe their recovery to this valuable discovery of Mutis.

It is to be regretted that this plant, which has been frequently confounded with the Ayapana, loses its virtue when the leaves and trunk are preserved in alcohol.

The guaco is not found everywhere that serpents abound.

Found chiefly in Zaruma, a canton of the province of Loxa, abounding in venemous reptiles.—Tr.

We know but little of the zoological and physical labours of Mutis; but we are aware he studied for a long time the habits of the ants and termites, which in America, as in Senegal, construct mounds from five to six feet in height.

He had painted a number of the mammiferous species, of the birds and fishes of New Granada.

He has described, according to the Linnæan method, in the Memoires de l’Academie de Stockholm, of which he was a member, a new species of marten, (viverra mapurito.)

The manuscripts of Mutis also contained a great number of valuable observations on the atmospheric currents, which appear much more distinctly under the tropics than in the temperate climates, by the horary variations of the barometer.

This instrument rises and falls, at the level of the sea as on the highest table land, four times in 24 hours under the torrid zone, with such regularity, that one may tell, to within a quarter of an hour, the time of day, by the simple inspection of the column of mercury.

It appears that this curious observation, which has so much excited the attention of scientific men, and the discovery of which La Condamine (Voyage à l’Equatcur, p. 50), has so falsely attributed to Godin, had been already made at Surinam in 1722, (Journal Litteraire de la Haye for the year 1722, p. 234.) Father Bondier (1742), employed it at Chandernagor; Godin (1737), at Quito; Thibault de Chanvalon (1751), at Martinique; Lamanon, in 1786, in the South Sea: Mutis avers having found that the moon exercises a sensible influence on the period and on the extent of the horary variations, (Caldas, Seminario de la nuevo Reyno de Granada, vol. 1, p. 55 and 361, No. 3.)

The man who has displayed such astonishing activity during forty-eight years of labour in the New World, was endowed by nature with a most happy physical constitution.

He was tall in stature; his features bore the imprint of nobleness; his air was grave, and his manners easy and polite.

His conversation was as varied as the objects of his studies.

If he frequently spoke with warmth, he also loved to practice that art of listening to which Fontenelle attached so much value, and which he found so rare in his days.

Although much occupied by a science which requires the most attentive study of organization, Mutis never lost sight of the great problems respecting the physique of the universe.

He travelled over the Cordilleras barometer in hand. He determined the medium temperature of those table lands, which appear, like islets, in the middle of the aerial ocean.

He had been struck with the aspect of the vegetation, which varies according as we descend towards the vallies, or climb towards the frozen summits of the Andes.

Every question connected with the geography of plants was to him of the most lively interest, and he sought to delineate the limits more or less, betwixt which, on the mountain declivities, grow the various species of Cinchona.

This taste for the physical sciences—this active curiosity directed to the development of the phenomena of organisation and meteorology, maintained the empire of his mind to the last moment of his life.

Nothing proves better the superiority of his talent, than the enthusiasm with which he received the intelligence of any important discovery.

He had not seen a chemical laboratory since 1760; but the perusal of the works of Lavoisier, of Guyton de Morveau and Fourcroy, had offered him the most valuable knowledge of the state of modern chemistry.

Mutis encouraged with great interest the young people who manifested a disposition for study; he furnished them with books and instruments, and sent many to travel at his proper cost

After having spoken of his liberality, and of the daily sacrifices he made to science, it is unnecessary to extol his disinterestedness.

He enjoyed all his life the confidence of the viceroys, who exercised unlimited sway in those countries; but he only employed his credit for the benefit of science—to make known modest merit, or to plead with courage the cause of the unfortunate.

His only ambition was to aid in the triumph of justice and of truth; he fulfilled with zeal, it may be said with austerity, the duties he had imposed on himself, in embracing the ecclesiastical profession, but his piety sought not the eclat of renownit was mild and sincere, as it ever is, when found combined with feeling and elevation of character.