Geography, 351 



the interior of those extensive countries. The 

 travels also of Cattaneo, Helms, and Dobriz- 

 HOFFER, in Peint and Paraguay; of Bancroft 

 and Stedman, in Guiana; of Armateur, in Cay- 

 enne; and ofFALKNER> m Patagonia, have con- 

 tributed greatly to enlarge the sphere of our know- 

 ledge respecting the southern division of this v^est- 

 ern continent. Don MalespiNa, before men- 

 tioned, made an excellent survey of the coast, from 

 Rio de Plata to Panama. But the best geogra- 

 phical view^ ever published of a large portion of 

 South-America is exhibited in the Mapa Geogra- 

 phica del America Meridional, published in 1775, 

 by Don Juan de la Cruz, Geographer to the 

 King of Spain .*" 



Besides all the discoveries and improvements 

 stated in the foregoing pages, and to which the en- 

 terprise of navigators and travellers has given 

 birth, the last age is distinguished, above all 

 others, by the production of large and excellent 

 systematic works on the subject of geography. 

 The difference in fulness and accuracy, between 

 the geographical treatises published at the com- 

 mencement of the eighteenth century, and those 

 Vv^hich appeared toward the close of it, can be 

 adequately conceived by none but those who have 

 compared them together. The successive works 

 of Gordon, Bowen, Middleton, Collyer, Sal- 

 mon, Guthrie,^ and Payne, held an important 

 rank at the dates of their respective publications. 

 The extensive geographical work of Mr. Busch- 



* This map was republished, In London, with improvements, by Fad en, 

 in 1 799. 



/ This work, it is said, was not compiled by Guthrie, whose name 

 it bears, but by another person, who had the permission to avail himself 

 of the popularity of that gentleman's character. The stratagem succeeded ; 

 the work, with all its deficiences and errors, immediately gained general 

 patronage, and entirely supplanted Salmon's Geographical Grammar, 

 whick had before enjoyed univasal favour. 



