Aspects of Nature (Vol. 2 of 2), by Alexander von Humboldt

[41] p. 267.—“On the ridge of the Chain of the Andes or Antis.”

The Inca Garcilaso, who was well acquainted with the language of his country and was fond of dwelling on etymologies, always calls the Chain of the Andes las Montañas de los Antis. He says positively, that the great Mountain chain east of Cuzco derived its name from the tribe of the Antis, and the Province of Anti which is to the east of the Capital of the Incas. The Quaternary division of the Peruvian Empire according to the four quarters of the Heavens, reckoned from Cuzco, borrowed its terminology not from the very circumstantial words taken which signify East, West, North, and South in the Quichua language (intip lluscinanpata, intip yaucunanpata, intip chaututa chayananpata, intip chaupunchau chayananpata); but from the names of the Provinces and of the tribes or races, (Provincias llamadas Anti, Cunti, Chincha y Colla), which are east, west, north, and south of the Centre of the Empire (the city of Cuzco). The four parts of the Inca-theocracy are called accordingly Antisuyu, Cuntisuyu, Chinchasuyu, and Collasuyu. The word suyu signifies “strip,” and also “part.” Notwithstanding the great distance, Quito belonged to Chinchasuyu; and in proportion as by their religious wars the Incas extended still more widely the prevalence of their faith, their language, and their absolute form of government, these Suyus also acquired larger and unequally increased dimensions. Thus the names of provinces came to be used to express the different quarters of the heavens; “Nombrar aquellos Partidos era lo mismo,” says Garcilaso, “que decir al Oriente, ó al Poniente.” The Snow Chain of the Antis was thus looked upon as an East chain. “La Provincia Anti da nombre á las Montañas de los Antis. Llamaron la parte á del Oriente Antisuyu, por la qual tambien llaman Anti á toda aquella gran Cordillera de Sierra Nevada que pasa al Oriente del Peru, por dar á entender, que está al Oriente.” (Commentarios Reales, P. I. p. 47 and 122.) Later writers have tried to deduce the name of the Chain of the Andes from “anta,” which signifies “copper” in the Quichua language. This metal was indeed of the greatest importance to a nation whose tools and cutting instruments were made not of iron but of copper mixed with tin; but the name of the “Copper Mountains” can hardly have been extended to so great a chain; and besides, as Professor Buschmann very justly remarks, the word anta retains its terminal a when making part of a compound word: anta, cobre, y antamarca Provincia de Cobre. Moreover, the form and composition of words in the ancient Peruvian language are so simple that there can be no question of the passage of an a into an i; and thus “anta” (copper) and “Anti or Ante” (meaning as dictionaries of the country explain “la tierra de los Andes, el Indio hombre de los Andes, la Sierra de los Andes,” i. e. the country of the Andes, an inhabitant of the Andes, or the chain of mountains themselves), are and must continue two wholly different and distinct words. There are no means of interpreting the proper name (Anti) by connecting it with any signification or idea; if such connection exist it is buried in the obscurity of the past. Other Composites of Anti besides the above-mentioned Antisuyu are “Anteruna” (the native inhabitant of the Andes), and Anteunccuy or Antionccoy, (sickness of the Andes, mal de los Andes pestifero).

[42] p. 268.—“The Countess of Chinchon.”

She was the wife of the Viceroy Don Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, who administered the government of Peru from 1629 to 1639. The cure of the Vice-Queen falls in the year 1638. A tradition which has obtained currency in Spain, but which I have heard much combated at Loxa, names a Corregidor del Cabildo de Loxa, Juan Lopez de Cañizares, as the person by whom the Quina-bark was first brought to Lima and generally recommended as a remedy. I have heard it asserted in Loxa that the beneficial virtues of the tree were known long before in the mountains, though not generally. Immediately after my return to Europe I expressed the doubts I felt as to the discovery having been made by the natives of the country round Loxa, since even at the present day the Indians of the neighbouring valleys, where intermittent fevers are very prevalent, shun the use of bark. (Compare my memoir entitled “über die China-wälder” in the “Magazin der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde” zu Berlin, Jahrg. I. 1807, S. 59.) The story of the natives having learnt the virtues of the Cinchona from the lions who “cure themselves of intermittent fevers by gnawing the bark of the China (or Quina) trees,”—(Hist. de l’Acad. des Sciences, année 1738, Paris, 1740, p. 233),—appears to be entirely of European origin, and nothing but a monkish fable. Nothing is known in the New Continent of the “Lion’s fever,” for the large so-called American Lion (Felis concolor), and the small mountain Lion (Puma) whose foot-marks I have seen on the snow, are never tamed and made the subjects of observation; nor are the different species of Felinæ in either continent accustomed to gnaw the bark of trees. The name of Countess’s Powder (Pulvis Comitissæ), occasioned by the remedy having been distributed by the Countess of Chinchon, was afterwards changed to that of Cardinal’s or Jesuit’s powder, because Cardinal de Lugo, Procurator-General of the order of the Jesuits, spread the knowledge of this valuable remedy during a journey through France, and recommended it to Cardinal Mazarin the more urgently, as the brethren of the order were beginning to prosecute a lucrative trade in South American Quina-bark which they obtained through their missionaries. It is hardly necessary to remark, that in the long controversy which ensued respecting the good or bad effects of the fever bark, the protestant physicians sometimes permitted themselves to be influenced by religious intolerance and dislike of the Jesuits.

[43] p. 271.—“Aposentos de Mulalos.”

Respecting these aposentos (dwellings, inns, in the Quichua language tampu, whence the Spanish form tambo), compare Cieça, Chronica del Peru, cap. 41, (ed. de 1554, p. 108) and my Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xxiv.

[44] p. 272.—“The fortress of the Cañar.”

Is situated not far from Turche, at an elevation of 9984 (10640 English) feet. I have given a drawing of it in the Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xvii. (compare also Cieça, cap. 44, P. i. p. 120). Not far from the Fortaleza del Cañar, in the celebrated ravine of the Sun, Inti-Guaycu, (in the Quichua or Qquechhua language, huaycco), is the rock on which the natives think they see a representation of the sun and of an enigmatical sort of bank or bench which is called Inga-Chungana (Incachuncana), the Inca’s play. I have drawn both. See Vues des Cordillères, Pl. xviii. and xix.

[45] p. 272.—“Artificial roads covered with cemented gravel.”

Compare Velasco, Historia de Quito, 1844, T. i. p. 126-128, and Prescott, Hist. of the Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 157.

[46] p. 273.—“Where the road was interrupted by flights of steps.”

Compare Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, Vol. iii. fol. 404, and Extracts from Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro, employed by the great historical writer now living at Boston; Prescott, Vol. i. p. 444. “El camino de las sierras es cosa de ver, porque en verdad en tierra tan fragosa en la cristiandad no se han visto tan hermosos caminos, toda la mayor parte de calzada.”

[47] p. 275.—“Greeks and Romans shew these contrasts.”

“If,” says Strabo, (Lib. v. p. 235, Casaub) “the Greeks in building their cities sought for a happy result by aiming especially at beauty and solidity, the Romans on the other hand have regarded particularly, objects which the Greeks left unthought of;—stone pavements in the streets; aqueducts bringing to the city abundant supplies of water; and provisions for drainage so as to wash away and carry to the Tiber all uncleanliness. They also paved the roads through the country, so that waggons may transport with ease the goods brought by trading ships.”

[48] p. 276.—“The messenger of the deity Nemterequeteba.”

The civilisation of ancient Mexico (the Aztec land of Anahuac), and that of the Peruvian theocracy or empire of the Incas, the children of the Sun, have so engrossed attention in Europe, that a third point of comparative light and of dawning civilisation, which existed among the nations inhabiting the mountains of New Granada, was long almost entirely overlooked. I have touched on this subject in some detail in the Vue des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique (ed. in 8vo.) T. ii. p. 220-267. The form of the government of the Muyscas of New Granada reminds us of the constitution of Japan and the relation of the Secular Ruler (Kubo or Seogun at Jeddo) to the sacred personage the Daïri at Miyako. When Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada advanced to the high table land of Bogota (Bacata, i. e. the extremity of the cultivated fields, probably from the proximity of the mountain wall), he found there three powers or authorities respecting whose reciprocal relations and subordination there remains some uncertainty. The spiritual chief, who was appointed by election, was the high priest of Iraca or Sogamoso (Sugamuxi, the place of the disappearance of Nemterequeteba): the secular rulers or princes were the Zake (Zaque of Hunsa or Tunja), and the Zipa of Funza. In the feudal constitution the last-named prince appears to have been originally subordinate to the Zake.

The Muyscas had a regular mode of computing time, with intercalation for amending the lunar year: they used small circular plates of gold, cast of equal diameter, as money (any traces of which among the highly civilised ancient Egyptians have been sought in vain), and they had temples of the Sun with stone columns, remains of which have very recently been discovered in the Valley of Leiva. (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio historico del Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 188, 196, 206, and 208; Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, 1847, p. 114.) The tribe or race of the Muyscas ought properly speaking to be always denoted by the name of Chibchas; as Muysca in the Chibcha language signifies merely “men,” “people.” The origin and elements of the civilisation introduced are attributed to two mystical forms, Bochica (Botschica) and Nemterequeteba which are often confounded together. The first of these is still more mythical than the second; for it was only Botschica who was regarded as divine, and made almost equal to the Sun itself. His fair companion Chia or Huythaca occasioned by her magical arts the overflowing of the valley of Bogota, and for so doing was banished by Botschica from the earth, and made to revolve round it for the first time, as the moon. Botschica struck the rock of Tequendama, and gave a passage for the waters to flow off near the field of the Giants (Campo de Gigantes) in which the bones of elephant-like mastodons lie buried at an elevation of 8250 (8792 Engl.) feet above the level of the sea. Captain Cochrane (Journal of a Residence in Colombia, 1825, Vol. ii. p. 390) and Mr. John Ranking (Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, 1827, p. 397), state that animals of this species are still living in the Andes, and shed their teeth! Nemterequeteba, also called Chinzapogua (enviado de Dios) is a human person, a bearded man, who came from the East, from Pasca, and disappeared at Sogamoso. The foundation of the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to him and sometimes to Botschica, and as the latter is said to have borne also the name of Nemqueteba, the confusion between the two, on ground so unhistoric, is easily accounted for.

My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his instructive work entitled Compendio de la Hist. de la Nueva Granada, p. 185, endeavours to prove by means of the Chibcha language that “potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) bear at Usmè the native non-Peruvian name of Yomi, and were found by Quesada already cultivated in the province of Velez as early as 1537, a period when their introduction from Chili, Peru, and Quito, would seem improbable, and therefore that the plant may be regarded as a native of New Granada.” I would remark, however, that the Peruvian invasion and complete possession of Quito took place before 1525, the year of the death of the Inca Huayna Capac. The southern provinces of Quito even fell under the dominion of Tupac Inca Yupanqui at the conclusion of the 15th century (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 332.) In the unfortunately still very obscure history of the first introduction of the potato into Europe, the merit of its introduction is still very generally attributed to Sir John Hawkins, who is supposed to have received it from Santa Fé in 1563 or 1565. It appears more certain that Sir Walter Raleigh planted the first potatoes on his Irish estate near Youghal, from whence they were taken to Lancashire. Before the conquista, the plantain (Musa), which since the arrival of the Spaniards has been cultivated in all the warmer parts of New Granada, was only found, as Colonel Acosta believes, (p. 205) at Choco. On the name Cundinamarca,—applied by a false erudition to the young republic of New Granada in 1811, a name “full of golden dreams” (sueños dorados), more properly Cundirumarca (not Cunturmarca, Garcilaso, lib. viii. cap. 2),—see also Joaquin Acosta, p. 189. Luis Daza, who joined the small invading army of the Conquistador Sebastian de Belalcazar which came from the south, had heard of a distant country abounding in gold, called Cundirumarca, inhabited by the tribe of the Chicas, and whose prince had solicited Atahuallpa at Caxamarca for auxiliary troops. These Chicas have been confounded with the Chibchas or Muyscas of New Granada; and thus the name of the unknown more southern country has been unduly transferred to that territory.

[49] p. 278.—“The fall of the Rio de Chamaya.”

Compare my Recueil d’Observ. Astron., vol. i. p. 304; Nivellement barométrique, No. 236-242. I have given in the Vues des Cordillères, Pl xxxi. a drawing of the “swimming post,” as he binds round his head the handkerchief containing the letters.

[50] p. 280.—“Which, on account of an old observation of La Condamine, was of some importance to the geography of South America.”

I desired to connect chronometrically Tomependa, the point at which La Condamine began his voyage, and other places geographically determined by him on the Amazons river, with the town of Quito. La Condamine had been in June 1743, (59 years before me) at Tomependa, which place I found, by star observations taken for three nights, to be in south lat. 5° 81´ 24´´, and west longitude from Paris 80° 56´ 37´´ (from Greenwich 78° 84´ 55´´). Previous to my return to France the longitude of Quito was in error to the full amount of 50½ minutes of arc, as Oltmanns has shown by my observations, and by a laborious recalculation of all those previously made. (Humboldt, Recueil d’Observations Astron., vol. ii. p. 309-359). Jupiter’s satellites, lunar distances, and occultations, give a satisfactory accordance, and all the elements of the calculation are placed before the public. The too easterly longitude of Quito was transferred by La Condamine to Cuenca and the Amazons river. “Je fis,” says La Condamine, “mon premier essai de navigation sur un radeau (balsa) en descendant la rivière de Chinchipe jusqu’à Tomependa. Il fallut me contenter d’en déterminer la latitude et de conclure la longitude par les routes. J’y fis mon testament politique en rédigeant l’extrait de mes observations le plus importantes.” (Journal du Voyage fait à l’Equateur, 1751, p. 186.)

[51] p. 282.—“At upwards of twelve thousand feet above the sea we found fossil marine shells.”

See my Essai géognostique sur le Gisement des Roches, 1823, p. 236; and for the first zoological determination of the fossils contained in the cretaceous group in the chain of the Andes, see Léop. de Buch, Pétrifications recueillies en Amérique, par Alex. de. Humboldt et Charles Degenhardt, 1839 (in fol.), pp. 2-3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 18-22. Pentland found fossil shells of the Silurian formation in Bolivia, on the Nevado de Antakäua, at the height of 16400 French (17480 English) feet, (Mary Somerville, Physical Geography, 1849, Vol. i. p. 185).

[52] p. 287.—“Where the chain of the Andes is intersected by the magnetic equator.”

Compare my Rélation hist. du Voyage aux Régions équinoxiales, T. iii. p. 622; and Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 191 and 432; where, however, by errors of the press, the longitude is once 48° 40´, and afterwards 80° 40´, instead of, as it should be, 80° 54´ from Paris (or 78° 32´ from Greenwich), (English edit. p. 173, and note 159).

[53] p. 290.—“Accompanied by inconvenient ceremonies of Court etiquette.”

In conformity with a highly ancient Court ceremonial, Atahuallpa spat not on the ground, but into the hand of one of the principal ladies present; “all,” says Garcilaso, “on account of his majesty.” El Inca nunca escupia en el suelo, sino en la mano de una Señora mui principal, por Majestad, (Garcilaso, Comment. Reales, P. ii. p. 46).

[54] p. 290.—“Captivity of Atahuallpa.”

A short time before the captive Inca was put to death, he was taken into the open air, in compliance with his request, to see a large comet. The “greenish black comet, nearly as thick as a man,” (Garcilaso says, P. ii. p. 44, una cometa verdinegra, poco menos gruesa que el cuerpo de un hombre), seen by Atahuallpa before his death, therefore in July or August 1533, and which he supposed to be the same malignant comet which had appeared at the death of his father, Huayna Capac, is certainly the one observed by Appian (Pingré, Cométographie, T. i. p. 496; and Galle’s “Notice of all the Paths of Comets hitherto computed,” in “Olber’s Leichtester Methode die Bahn eines Cometen zu berechnen,” 1847, S. 206), and which, on the 21st of July, standing high in the north, near the constellation of Perseus, represented the sword which Perseus holds in his right hand. (Mädler, Astronomie, 1846, S. 307; Schnurrer, Die Chronik der Seuchen in Verbindung mit gleichzeitigen Erscheinungen, 1825, Th. ii. S. 82.) Robertson considers the year of Huayna Capac’s death uncertain; but, from the researches of Balboa and Velasco, that event appears to have occurred towards the close of 1525: thus the statements of Hevelius (Cometographia, p. 844), and of Pingré (T. i. p. 485), derive confirmation from the testimony of Garcilaso (P. i. p. 321) and the tradition preserved among the “amautas, que son los filosofos de aquella Republica.” I may here introduce the remark, that Oviedo alone, and certainly erroneously, asserts, in the inedited continuation of his Historia de las Indias, that the proper name of the Inca was not Atahuallpa, but Atabaliva (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 498.)

[55] p. 291.—“Ducados de Oro.”

The sum mentioned in the text is that which is stated by Garcilaso de la Vega in the Commentarios reales de los Incas, Parte ii. 1722, pp. 27 and 51. The statements of Padre Blas Valera and of Gomara, Historia de las Indias, 1553, p. 67, differ, however, considerably. Compare my Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne (éd. 2), T. iii. p. 424. It is, moreover, no less difficult to determine the value of the Ducado, Castellano, or Peso de Oro. (Essai pol. T. iii. pp. 371 and 377; Joaquin Acosta, Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, 1848, p. 14.) The modern excellent historical writer, Prescott, has been able to avail himself of a manuscript bearing the very promising title, “Acta de Reparticion del Rescate de Atahuallpa.” The estimate of the whole Peruvian booty which the brothers Pizarro and Almagro divided amongst themselves at the (I believe) too large value of three and a half millions of pounds sterling, includes doubtless the gold of the ransom and that taken from the different temples of the Sun and from the enchanted gardens, (Huertas de Oro). (Prescott, Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. pp. 464-477.)

[56] p. 292.—“The great, but, for a Son of the Sun, somewhat free-thinking Huayna Capac.”

The nightly absence of the Sun excited in the Inca many philosophical doubts as to the government of the world by that luminary. Padre Blas Valera noted down the remarks of the Inca on the subject of the Sun: “Many maintain that the Sun lives, and is the Maker and Doer of all things (el hacedor de todas las cosas); but whoever would complete any thing must remain by what he is doing. Now many things take place when the Sun is absent; therefore he is not the original cause of all things. It seems also doubtful whether he is living; for though always circling round, he is never weary (no se cansa). If he was living, he would become weary, as we do; and if he was free, he would surely move sometimes into parts of the heavens where we never see him. The Sun is like an animal fastened by a cord so as always to move in the same round, (como una Res atada que siempre hace un mismo cerco); or as an arrow which only goes where it is sent, and not where it chooses itself.” (Garcilaso, Comment. Reales, P. i. lib. viii. cap. 8, p. 276.) The view taken of the circling round of a heavenly body, as if it was fastened to a cord, is very striking. As Huayna Capac died at Quito in 1525, seven years before the arrival of the Spaniards, he no doubt used, instead of “res atada,” the general expression of an “animal” fastened to a cord; but indeed, even in Spanish, “res” is by no means limited to oxen, but may be applied to any tame cattle. We cannot examine here how far the Padre may have mingled parts of his own sermons with the heresies of the Inca, with the view of weaning the natives from the official and dynastic worship of the Sun, the religion of the Court. We see in the very conservative State policy, and in the maxims of State and proceedings of the Inca Roca, the conqueror of the province of Charcas, the solicitude which was felt to guard strictly the lower classes of the people from such doubts. This Inca founded schools for the upper classes only, and forbade, under heavy penalties, to teach the common people any thing, “lest they should become presumptuous, and should create disturbances in the State!” (No es lecito que enseñen á los hijos de los Plebeios las Ciencias, porque la gente baja no se eleve y ensobervezca y menoscabe la Republica; Garcilaso, P. i. p. 276.) Thus the policy of the Inca’s theocracy was almost the same as that of the Slave States in the United Free States of North America.

[57] p. 295.—“The restoration of an empire of the Incas.”

I have treated this subject more fully in another place (Relation hist. T. iii. p. 703-705 and 713). Raleigh thought there was in Peru an old prophecy “that from Inglaterra those Ingas should be againe in time to come restored and deliuered from the seruitude of the said conquerors. I am resolued that if there were but a smal army afoote in Guiana marching towards Manoa, the chiefe citie of Inga, he would yield Her Majestie by composition so many hundred thousand pounds yearely, as should both defend all enemies abroad and defray all expences at home, and that he woulde besides pay a garrison of 3000 or 4000 soldiers very royally to defend him against other nations. The Inca wil be brought to tribute with great gladnes.” (Raleigh, “The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana, performed in 1595,” according to the edition published by Sir Robert Schomburgk, 1848, p. 119 and 137.) This scheme of a Restoration promised much that might be very agreeable to both sides, but unfortunately the dynasty who were to be restored, and who were to pay the money, were wanting!

[58] p. 299.—“Of the expedition of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.”

I have already remarked elsewhere (Examen critique de l’histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, et des progrès de l’Astronomie nautique aux 15ème et 16ème siècles, T. i. p. 349) that Columbus knew fully ten years before Balboa’s expedition the existence of the South Sea and its great proximity to the east coast of Veragua. He was conducted to this knowledge not by theoretical speculations respecting the configuration of Eastern Asia, but by the local and positive reports of the natives, which he collected on his fourth voyage (May 11, 1502, to November 7, 1504). On this fourth voyage the Admiral went from the coast of Honduras to the Puerto de Mosquitos, the western end of the Isthmus of Panama. The reports of the natives, and the comments of Columbus on those reports in the “Carta rarissima” of the 7th of July, 1503, were to the effect that “not far from the Rio de Belen the other sea (the South Sea) turns (boxa) to the mouths of the Ganges, so that the countries of the Aurea (i. e. the countries of the Chersonesus aurea of Ptolemy) are situated in relation to the eastern coasts of Veragus, as Tortosa (at the mouth of the Ebro) is to Fuentarrabia (on the Bidassoa) in Biscay, or as Venice in relation to Pisa.” Although Balboa first saw the South Sea from the heights of the Sierra de Quarequa on the 25th of September (Petr. Martyr, Epist. dxl. p. 296), yet it was not until several days later that Alonso Martin de Don Benito, who found a way from the mountains of Quarequa to the Gulf of San Miguel, embarked on the South Sea in a canoe. (Joaquin Acosta, Compendio hist. del Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada, p. 49.)

As the taking possession of a considerable part of the west coast of the New Continent by the United States of North America, and the report of the abundance of gold in New California (now called Upper California) have rendered more urgent than ever the formation of a communication between the Atlantic States and the regions of the West through the Isthmus of Panama, I feel it my duty to call attention once again to the circumstance that the shortest way to the shores of the Pacific, which was shown by the natives to Alonso Martin de Don Benito, is in the eastern part of the Isthmus, and led to the Golfo de San Miguel. We know that Columbus (Vida del Almirante por Don Fernando Colon, cap. 90) sought for an “estrecho de Tierra firmë”; and in the official documents which we possess of the years 1505 and 1507, and especially 1514, mention is made of the desired “opening” (abertura), and of the pass (passo), which should lead directly to the “Indian Land of Spices.” Having for more than forty years been occupied with the subject of the means of communication between the two seas, I have constantly, both in my printed works and in the different memoirs which with honourable confidence the Free States of Spanish America have requested me to furnish, urged that the Isthmus should be examined hypsometrically throughout its entire length, and more especially where, in Darien and the inhospitable former Provincia de Biruquete, it joins the continent of South America; and where, between the Atrato and the Bay of Cupica (on the shore of the Pacific), the mountain chain of the Isthmus almost entirely disappears. (See in my Atlas géographique et physique de la Nouvelle Espagne, Pl. iv.; in the Atlas de la Relation historique, Pl. xxii. and xxiii.; Voyage aux Régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, T. iii. p. 117-154; and Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, T. i. 2de édit. 1825, p. 202-248.)

General Bolivar at my request caused an exact levelling of the Isthmus between Panama and the mouth of the Rio Chagres to be made in 1828 and 1829 by Lloyd and Falmarc. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the year 1830, p. 59-68.) Other measurements have since been executed by accomplished and experienced French engineers, and projects have been formed for canals and railways with locks and tunnels, but always in the direction of a meridian between Portobello and Panama,—or more to the west, towards Chagres and Cruces. Thus the most important points of the eastern and south-eastern part of the Isthmus have remained unexamined on both shores! So long as this part is not examined geographically by means of exact but easily obtained determinations of latitude and of longitude by chronometers, as well as hypsometrically in the conformation of the surface by barometric measurements of elevation,—so long I consider that the statement I have repeatedly made, and which I now repeat in 1849, will still be true; viz. “that it is as yet unproved and quite premature to pronounce that the Isthmus does not admit of the formation of an Oceanic Canal (i. e. a canal with fewer locks than the Caledonian Canal) permitting at all seasons the passage of the same sea-going ships between New York and Liverpool on the one hand, and Chili and California on the other.”

On the Atlantic side (according to examinations which the Direccion of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid have entered on their maps since 1809) the Ensenada de Mandinga penetrates so deeply towards the south that it appears to be only four or five German geographical miles, fifteen to an equatorial degree, (i. e. 16 or 20 English geographical miles), from the coast of the Pacific on the east of Panama. On the Pacific side the isthmus is almost equally indented by the deep Golfo de San Miguel, into which the Rio Tuyra falls, with its tributary river the Chuchunque (Chuchunaque). This last-named stream in the upper part of its course approaches within 16 English geographical miles of the Atlantic side of the isthmus to the west of Cape Tiburon. For more than twenty years I have had inquiries made from me on the subject of the problem of the Isthmus of Panama, by associations desirous of employing considerable pecuniary means: but the simple advice which I have given has never been followed. Every scientifically educated engineer knows that between the tropics, (even without corresponding observations), good barometric measurements (the horary variations being taken into account) afford results which are well assured to less than from 70 to 90 French or 75 to 96 English feet. It would besides be easy to establish for a few months on the two shores two fixed corresponding barometric stations, and to compare repeatedly the portable instruments employed in preliminary levelling, with each other and with those at the fixed stations. Let that part be particularly examined where, near the continent of South America, the separating mountain ridge sinks into hills. Seeing the importance of the subject to the great commerce of the world, the research ought not, as hitherto, to be restricted to a limited field. A great and comprehensive work, which shall include the whole eastern part of the Isthmus,—and which will be equally useful for every possible kind of operation or construction,—for canal, or for railway,—can alone decide the much discussed problem either affirmatively or negatively. That will be done at last, which should, and, had my advice been taken, would have been done in the first instance.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.