of these countries which we possessed up to the date of its publication at Paris, in 1809, by M. Walckenaer. Unfortunately, from the circumstance of its having been brought out in France whilst we were at war, and men's minds intently bent upon other matters, it was little known in England till long afterwards.* The difficulty of getting any books at that time from the Continent effectually prevented its obtaining any general circulation in this country; and we remained almost as ignorant of its valuable contents as though with other works of a like nature it had been still locked up in the secret archives of the Council of the Indies in Spain.

Excepting the portions which were given in Azara's Atlas, the geographical results of the Great Survey on which he was engaged were not suffered to transpire, and would probably have remained to this day unknown had not the South Americans assumed the management of their own affairs.

I became acquainted, during my residence at Buenos Ayres, with an old engineer officer, Colonel Cabrer, who had been employed from the commencement to the close of this great operation. In his possession I saw a complete set of all the maps drawn by the Commissioners, copied upon a large scale from the originals, which he informed me had been sent to Madrid. He was a staunch old loyalist, who would never believe but that the King of Spain would some day re-establish his rule in South America, under which persuasion nothing would induce him whilst he lived to give up any part of these valuable documents to the new authorities. He is since dead, and I have understood the Government of Buenos Ayres were in treaty for the purchase of them. They will be invaluable not only to them, but to the governments of the Banda

* Extracts from it were given in the British Review for September, 1811.

Oriental, of Paraguay, and of Bolivia, whenever the time comes for definitively fixing their boundaries with Brazil and with each other.

I obtained from him copies of some detached portions of these surveys, and a map drawn by him of the Spanish territories to the east of the Paraná for the use of General Alvear when in command of the Buenos-Ayrean army which liberated the Banda Oriental from the Emperor of Brazil, and which the General presented to me at the close of the war, also a large manuscript map taken with the baggage of the Marquis of Barbacena, his opponent, at the battle of Ytuzaingo.

These two maps, expressly prepared for the use of the respective Commanders-in-chief, were compiled, as may be supposed, from the best materials to be found in the archives of Buenos Ayres and of Rio de Janeiro.

The Brazilian map comprises all the country lying east of the river Uruguay, from the Island of St. Catherine's to Monte Video, corrected by the Brazilian officers on the line of the army's march to the day before it fell into the hands of their enemies.

With respect to the Provincias Arribeñas, or Provinces lying to the westward of the river Paraná, the information is less satisfactory; indeed, of some vast portions of those regions it may be said that nothing but the general course of the principal rivers is as yet known. The immense tract called the Gran Chaco is still in possession of aboriginal tribes, and other extensive districts are inhabited by people who, though of a different race, seem little beyond them in civilization.

It was not the policy of Spain to undertake any careful examination of her colonial possessions, except when obliged to do so in furtherance of measures of self-defence, or in the expectation of some profitable return in the precious metals-the great object of her solicitude; and if the high

road from Potosi to Buenos Ayres had not run through them, I believe we should have hardly known in Europe even the names of the chief towns of some of the intermediate provinces.

When I first arrived at Buenos Ayres, in hopes of obtaining some statistical information on the provinces in the interior, I addressed myself to their several governors personally, and I have every reason to believe, under the circumstances, that they were desirous to meet my wishes. I received the most civil assurances to that effect, but, excepting from Cordova, La Rioja, and Salta, I found them utterly unable to communicate anything of a definite or satisfactory nature; and, although they promised to collect what I asked for, I soon found they had not the means of doing so, and that they had most of them other matters on hand which had more urgent calls on their attention.

The Governor of Salta sent me a detailed report upon the extent and productions of that province, and, what I less expected, a good map of it, drawn by his son, Colonel Arenales, the author of a work upon the Gran Chaco and River Vermejo, in which he has endeavoured to draw attention to the advantages of establishing a company to navigate that river, now proved beyond a doubt to be perfectly practicable throughout its whole course, from Oran, in the heart of the continent, to the Paraná, and thence to the ocean.

In the impossibility of obtaining further information from the local authorities, I established a correspondence with two of my more intelligent countrymen resident at opposite extremes of the Republic-Dr. Gillies, a Scotch physician, established at Mendoza, and Dr. Redhead, who had long been a resident at Salta-both able and willing to assist me in my search after knowledge. They collected and sent me a variety of information which I could not have obtained from any other sources, public or private.

C

In treating of the provinces of Cuyo, in Chapter XIX., I have mentioned that for which I am indebted to Dr. Gillies.

Dr. Redhead's chiefly related to the Upper Provinces. He was the first to draw my attention to the fossil bones found at Tarija, and to the meteoric iron of Atacama. To him also I owe an interesting series of barometrical observations, made during repeated journeys between Buenos Ayres and Potosi, which, connected with those of Mr. Pentland, to whom we are indebted for nearly all we know of the physical geography of Alto Peru, have furnished materials for constructing the interesting section annexed to the map compiled by Mr. Petermann for this work the first attempt at any such graphic delineation of the physical features of South America throughout a line which extends from north-west to south-east more than twelve hundred geographical miles.

The similar section from Chile to Buenos Ayres is founded upon the barometrical observations of Bauza, Miers, Gillies, FitzRoy, and Mr. Pentland.

Both, I think it will be admitted, are of great interest in illustration of the hypothesis of the gradual and regular deposition of the alluvial detritus from the Andes in the great basin now filled up by the so-called Pampa formation.

The map in question by Mr. Petermann, I may mention, is chiefly taken from that constructed by Mr. Arrowsmith in 1839, from the materials to which I have referred, so far as that map extends; but it has been necessary to reduce the scale in order to include within the same space a portion of Alto Peru (principally copied from Mr. Pentland's map of the Peru-Bolivian Andes and the Lake of Titicaca), which seemed necessary for the better illustration of the narrative which I have given in the present volume of the first discovery and conquest of the countries to the north of Paraguay.

Although we have still, no doubt, a vast deal to learn before anything like a perfect delineation can be expected of so extensive a portion of the new continent, Mr. Arrowsmith's map, which is now incorporated in his General Atlas, is far the best ever compiled of the portion of South America which it embraces. As I have already mentioned, in the compilation of it he was greatly assisted by the invaluable surveys of the coasts of South America recently brought to this country by Her Majesty's officers employed on that service, which, in any enumeration of the existing materials for such a map, it is impossible to pass over without special notice.

The surveys carried on successively by Captains King, FitzRoy, and Sulivan, and just completed by Captain Kellett, now extend from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to the Bay of Panamá on the opposite side of the continent, embracing the whole sea-board of the Argentine Confederation-the sterile coasts of Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, the inhospitable group of Tierra del Fuego, the coasts of Chile with its intricate channels and sounds and numerous islands to the south, the shores of Bolivia and Peru, and the hitherto little visited line of coast from the river of Guayaquil to Panamá.

Thanks to the accurate surveys of Captains King and FitzRoy, the Straits of Magellan have now become the highway for steam navigation between the two great oceans of the southern hemisphere, and the ports and havens of the once so much dreaded coasts of Tierra del Fuego safe places of refuge for the sailing vessels of all nations. The nautical instructions connected with these surveys, which have been published at the same time, and for the circulation of which every possible exertion has been made by the Hydrographical Department of the Admiralty under the direction of the distinguished officer who presides over that branch of the service, Sir Francis Beaufort, entitle