Travels leHveen the Tropics. 



II- 



agreeable climate : it is furrounded by ca- 

 nals, walks bordered wi:h trees, a multi- 

 tude ot Indian hamleis, and without 

 doubt may be compared to the fincli cities 

 of Eiirofe. It is diftinCTuiflied alio by 

 its large fcieniific eftablirtiments, vvliich 

 niay vie with fcveral of tiie old coniinent, 

 and to which there are none funilai' m the 

 new. 



The botanical garden, direStd by thit 

 excellent botanili M. Cervantes ; the ex- 

 pedition !;f' M. StlT;, who is accoinpanie<l 

 by able draft firen, and whole obje ';i- 's to 

 acqtiiie a kn.iwleig- ot the plan;s et Mex- 

 ico ; the Sci:ool oj Mines, eflabiiihed by 

 the liberality ot tie corps of miners and 

 b)' the creative genius of M. d'Elhuyar; 

 and t le Acadeii.y ff Painting, Enoiaving, 

 and Sculpture J all tend to drfFufe talie 

 and kr.OA'lcd?e in a country, the riches cf 

 which I'ecm to oppoie inielleitual cul- 

 ture. 



With inHrumenls taken from the excel- 

 lent coUeftinn of the School ot JNIInes, 

 M. Hnmboldt determined the longitude 

 of Mexico, in which there was an error 

 of nearly two degrees, as has been con- 

 fumed by correfponding oblervarians of 

 the I'atellites made at the Hava nah. 



Alter a liay of fome mon'hs in that ca- 

 pita!, our travellers vifitcd the celebrated 

 mines of Moran aid Rcal-del-Mcnte, 

 where the vein of La Biiicayna has give:i 

 millions of piaitres to the Counts De Re- 

 gla ; they examined the obfidian Itones of 

 OyameJ, which form Ihata in the pearl. 

 ftone and porphyry, and ferved as knives 

 to the ancient Mexicans. The whole of 

 •his countiy, fills! with bafaltes, amyg- 

 daioids, and calcareous and licondary 

 formations, from the large c.ivern of 

 Pnito, traverfed by a river to the porphy- 

 ritic rocks of Aftopan, prefents [ heno- 

 mena interefting to the geologift, which 

 have been alreatly examined by M. del 

 Kii, the pupil of Werner, and one of the 

 molt learned mineralogilts of the prefcnt 

 day. 



On their return from their excurfion to 

 Mci^n in July JIJ03, they undertook an- 

 other to the iioithe.-ii part of the kinpdom. 

 At fird they direfled their relcarches to 

 Huehuttoca, where, at the txpence of 

 fix milli'jr.s of pialires, an aptiture has 

 been formed in the ntDuntainof Sincoc to 

 drain off the waters from the valley of 

 Mexico t . the river Muniezuma. They 

 then pidfd Queretaro, by Salamanca and 

 tile fertile plains of Yrapuaio, to Gua, 

 i)a<uato, a town which contains 50,000 

 mhanitantt : it is filtiated in a narrow de- 

 file, and celebrated by its mines, which 



are of far greater confequence than thofe 

 of Pctofi. 



The mine of Count de Valenciana, 

 wliich hss given birth to a confik able 

 town on a hill which thiity yearL.ago 

 fcaicely r-fForded pafture to goats, is alrea- 

 dy !84ofe':t in perpendicular depth. It 

 is the deepeft and richeft in the world ; 

 the annual profit of the proprietors having 

 never been lefi than three millions of 

 lures, and it fometimes am.unts to five 

 or (ix. 



After two months employed in mea- 

 furcments and geological refearches, and 

 after havin? examined the thermal waters 

 of Comagillas, the temperature of wh ch 

 is 11° of R;.-aumnr higher than thofe of 

 the Philippine illands, which Sonnerat 

 conliders as the hoitefl in the word, our 

 travellers prnceeded tnrough the valley of 

 St. Jago, where th^.y thought they law in 

 fevcral lakes at the liinimits of tne bafal- 

 tic mountains fo many craters of burat- 

 out volcanoes, toVaibdolid, the capital nf 

 the ancient kingdom ot Michoacan.— . 

 They thence delcended, notwithftanding 

 the continual auiumnal rai;s, by Patz- 

 quaro, fituafed on the Kiargin ot a very 

 extenfive like towards the coallof the Pa- 

 cific Ocean, to thi plams of JoruIIo, 

 where, in the courl'e of one night in 1759, 

 during one of the greateft convulfi;5ns 

 which the globe ever experienced, there 

 ifi'ued fiom the earth a volcano 149+ feet 

 in height, furrour.de.i by more thsn 2000 

 moiitiis ft ill emitting Imoke. They de- 

 fcended into the burning crater of the 

 great volcano to the perpendicular depth 

 of 258 feet, jumping ever fifliircs which 

 exhaled flaming Ivdphurated hydrogen g?s. 

 After gr-^ar danger, arifing from the brit- 

 lleiieis of the baialiic and lier.itic lava, 

 they reached nea; ly the bottotB of the cra- 

 ter, and analyfcd ihe air in it, which was 

 found to he furcharged in an extraordi- 

 nary manner with carbonic acid. 



From the kingolom ot Michoacan, ona 

 of the moft agrte-ibie and moft (ertile 

 countries in the Indies, th-y returned to 

 Mexico by the high table-land of Tolucca, 

 in v/hich they meafurcl the inowy moun- 

 tain of the fame nanie, alcending to its 

 high'-li: fiimmit, the peak of Fraide, 

 wliich rife>. 2364. t ilts ab.ive the level of 

 the fea. Tlit;y vifited aifo a' Tolucca the 

 famous hand. tree, the cbeiranthojjamon of 

 M . Cei vantcs, a genus which prclents a phe- 

 noiucnun almolt unique, — that of there 

 being oidy one individual ot it, whicll 

 liao txifted fincc the reniotclt antiquity. 



On their return to the capiialot Mexico, 



they remained there fevtral monihs to ar- 



P a langc 



