Copy 1, Volume 1

Political essay on the kingdom of New Spain / With physical sections and maps founded on astronomical observations and trigonometrical and barometrical measurements. Translated from the original French by John Black.

  • Alexander von Humboldt
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Political essay on the kingdom of New Spain / With physical sections and maps founded on astronomical observations and trigonometrical and barometrical measurements. Translated from the original French by John Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    îng up maps of the interior of Africa. It is otherwise in the part of Mexico contained between the ports of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, and be- tween the capital of Mexico and the Real* of Guanaxuato. In this region, traversed by me from the month of March, 1803, to the month of February, 1804^ a region the most cultivated and best inhabited of the kingdom, there are to be found a sufficient number of points of which the position is astronomically determined. It is to be wished that a traveller, versed in the practice of observa- tions, and provided with a sextant, or a small re- peating circle of reflection, a chronometer, an achromatic telescope and a portable barometer for measuring the height of mountains, should travel in three directions over the north of the kingdom of New Spain. He should direct his course, 1st. from f the city of Guanaxuato to the presidio of Santa Fe} or to the village of Taos in New Mexico; 2d. from the mouth of the Rio del Norte, which pours its waters into the gulph of Mexico, to the sea of Cortez, particularly to the junction of the Rio Colorado and the Rio Gila ; and, 3d. from the city of Mazatlan, in the province of Cinaloa, to the city of Alta Mira, on the left bank of the Rio de Panuco. The first of these three journies would be the most important, the easiest to execute, and that in * The word Real indicates a place where mines are worked.
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