OF THE EXPEDITION. XXXI 



the orders from the Navy Department, I had brought a despatch to the former gentleman from 

 the honorable Secretary of State, who also made known the objects of the Expedition ; and in 

 consequence, the consul placed me in direct intercourse with his excellency the Minister, as the 

 most expeditious mode of perfecting the necessary arrangements. 



By travelling all night, I was at Santiago near noon of the next day. On presenting my 

 letters, the government received me cordially, and acted promptly and with commendable lib- 

 erality on every point, by offers to place at my control any unoccupied public ground, to admit 

 free of customs dues everything belonging to the officers of the Expedition, as well as its equip- 

 ment, and to promote or facilitate its objects in every other manner which might be indicated. 

 Indeed, the good will and liberality of the President and his Cabinet then, and throughout our 

 stay in the country, were uniformly manifested. As one evidence of their desire to serve us, the 

 ^Minister of War offered to station a guard at the observatory to protect the instruments from 

 malicious injury, and ourselves from possible annoyance, requesting that notice might be sent 

 tn him as soon as the instruments were conveyed to the buildings. Unwilling to incur so great 

 an obligation when there was no apparent necessity for it, the offer continued tacitly declined. 

 Message after message came from the Colonel of Artillery, notifying me that he had orders to 

 send a guard, and he awaited expression of our wishes until, finding no reply was obtainable, 

 but " I will advise you when it becomes necessary," he sent a corporal with instructions to re- 

 port to me. To have ordered the subordinate and his men back to the cuartel would have been 

 a rude return for an act of evident kindness, and, consequently, a sentinel stood beside the obser- 

 vatory door summer and winter. As a patron of science, in stability of government and stead- 

 ily progressive prosperity, Chile is far in advance of every other nation of South America. 



A very brief investigation sufficed to satisfy me that no other part of the country would 

 answer our purposes so well. In arriving at this conclusion, three conditions were weighed : 

 1st. Resources in case of accidental injury to instruments. 2d. Increased value of observations 

 from the most southern station possible ; and 3d. The atmosphere which would permit the 

 greatest number of observations. The first was paramount, and as persons capable of making 

 repairs could be found only at Santiago and Valparaiso, the advantage of a station nearer to the 

 pole was thrown oxit of the question. Nor did decision between these two places require longer 

 examination. Apart from the fact that the former city better satisfies the second condition, the 

 climate of the coast is subject to frequent fogs and mists, from which the great plain is almost 

 wholly exempt. Santiago, therefore, was chosen, much, I believe, to the gratification of the 

 government. 



This city, with a population of 90,000 souls, is situated on an elevated plain or basin, between 

 ranges of mountains, in south latitude 33 26' 25". 9; approximate longitude west of Greenwich, 

 4/i. 42m. 33. 6s. The plain, or, more properly speaking, the succession of basins, on one of 

 which it stands, commences about latitude 33 south, and with slight interruption, near the par- 

 allel of 34|, extends to the Gulf of Ancud, in latitude 41^. It varies in breadth from twelve 

 to forty miles, and has a constant and quite uniform declivity from north to south. At San- 

 tiago the height is 1,830 feet above the sea; opposite Chiloe the plain slopes to the ocean level. 

 The base of the nearest longitudinal range of the Andes is nine miles distant from the capital; 

 that of tlic cordilleras to the west, not less than sixteen miles the former attaining a height 

 of 9,000, and the latter about 3,000 feet above the plain. One spur to the northeast, which is 

 nearly 1,000 feet high, approaches the very skirts of the city ; portions of the great Andine 

 chain, less than thirty miles distant in an air-line, rise to 18,000 and 20, 000 feet; and Tupun- 

 gato to the east, and Aconcagua to the N.N.E., the loftiest known summits of America, are 

 each more than 22,000 feet above the sea. Interrupting the eastern horizon, as does this giant 

 cordilleru, its interference with observations on the planet Venus in the morning twilight ren- 

 dered so near an approach to it objectionable; but there was no locality in the vicinity of a 

 proper residence free from the same obstacle, and no town in the interior that offered the facili- 

 ties possessed by the capital. 



