DEFECTS OF MODERN TRAVELS. 335 



been vaguely denominated Natural History of the 

 World, Theory of the Earth, or Physical Geography. 

 The last of these two objects seemed to me the most im- 

 portant. I was passionately devoted to botany and cer- 

 tain parts of zoology, and I flattered myself that our 

 investigations might add some new species to those 

 already known, both in the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms ; but preferring the connection of facts which have 

 been long observed, to the knowledge of insulated facts, 

 although new, the discovery of an unknown genus 

 seemed to me far less interesting than an observation on 

 the geographical relations of the vegetable world, on the 

 migrations of the social plants, and the limit of the 

 height which their different tribes attain on the flanks of 

 the Cordilleras. 



" When I began to read the numerous narratives of 

 travels, which compose so interesting a part of modern 

 'literature, I regretted that travellers, the most enlightened 

 in the insulated branches of natural history, were seldom 

 possessed of sufficient variety of knowledge to avail 

 themselves of every advantage arising from their posi- 

 tion. It appeared to me, that the importance of the 

 results hitherto obtained did not keep pace with the 

 immense progress which at the end of the eighteenth 

 century, had been made in several departments of science, 

 particularly geology, the history of the modifications of 

 the atmosphere, and the physiology of animals and 

 plants. I saw with regret (and all scientific men have 

 shared this feeling), that whilst the number of accurate 

 instruments was daily increasing, we were still ignorant 

 of the height of many mountains and elevated plains ; 

 of the periodical oscillations of the aerial ocean ; of the 



