Chap. II. THE LOXA REGION. 23 



the botanical expedition of New Granada ; he explored the 

 chinchona region as far as Loxa ; and thus takes his place as 

 one of those to whom we are indebted for throwing light ou 

 tlie natiu-e of the trees yielding Peruvian bark. Caldas was 

 born at Popayau in the year 1770 ; and, from early youtli, 

 devoted himself to the pui-suits of science with untiring- 

 energy, especially studying botany, mathematics, meteoro- 

 logy, and physical geography. He constructed his own 

 barometer and sextant, and, ignorant of the methods adopted 

 in Europe, he discovered the way of ascertaining altitudes by 

 a boiling-point thermometer. He has left many memou's on 

 botanical and other subjects behind him, and his style is 

 always animated, clear, and interesting ; but many of the 

 productions of this remarkable man are still in manuscript,^ 

 and others are lost to us for ever. Above all, it is to be 

 regretted that his botanical chart of the chinchona genus, 

 wliich he promised in one of his memoirs, has never seen the 

 light. After the declaration of indej^endence Caldas was 

 nominated by the Congress at Bogota to publish the works 

 of his friend the botanist Mutis. When the brutal Spanish 

 General Morillo entered Bogota in June 1816, he perpetrated 

 a series of savage massacres, in which more than GOO of the 

 most distinguished men in the country fell victims. Among 

 them was Caldas, who was shot through the back on the oOth 

 of October 1816.^ 



The Spanish botanists Euiz and Pavon also examined the 

 cbinchona-trees of Loxa ; and the latter described two species, 

 C. Uritusinga, named from the mountain on which it was 

 once most abundant, and 0. Cliahuarguera, so called from a 

 fancied resemblance of the bark to a pair of breeches (Jmara 

 in Quichua) made from the fibre of the American aloe 



'' Some of these MSS. are, I believe, I * Spanish edition of General Miller's 

 in possession of Don Pedro Carbo, of Memoirs, i. p. 42. 

 Guayaquil. | 



