EXPLORATION OF MEXICO. 17 



1530 and 1532 the atrocious Nuno de Guzman had reduced the provinces of 

 Jalisco and Sinaloa ; then, in 1539, the Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza, advanced 

 far into the region which is now known as New Mexico, and which lies within the 

 United States frontier. Here he claimed to have seen the marvellous Cibola, 

 which was soon afterwards shown by the expedition under Coronado to be nothing 

 more than one of those villages belonging to the Zuni nation, where the whole 

 population dwells in one huge fortified building erected around a central court. 

 Coronado's expedition, which lasted over two years, from 1540 to 1542, and which 

 was intended to co-operate with Alarcon's sea voyage, resulted in the occupation 

 and settlement of Sonora, the north-westernmost state of the present republic. 



But although the Mexican territory, properly so called, had now been traversed 

 in all directions, the itineraries farther removed from the capital had not yet 

 been utilised for the construction of maps, nor could this be done with any ap- 

 proach to accuracy in the absence of astronomic determinations. In 1542, the 

 viceroy Mendoza was still engaged in fixing the position of the city of Mexico 

 at 25 degrees, 42 minutes farther west than its real meridian, the calculations 

 being deduced from the observation of two lunar eclipses. Even so late as 1579, 

 the map published by Ortelius gives only the central district round about the 

 capital with a fair degi-ee of accuracy. 



Despite all the explorations along the Californian seaboard, it was even still 

 maintained that California itself had been circumnavigated, and its insular character 

 thus fully established ; hence the Jesuit, Salvatierra, who began the settlement 

 of this region in 1697, gave it the name of Ida Carolina (Caroline Island). In 

 fact, the researches of the earh^ explorers were not confirmed till the beginning of 

 the eighteenth century by the missionary, Klihn, the Kino of Spanish writers. 



It appears from the manuscript documents possessed by the Madrid Academia de 

 Histoî'ia, and from the collections preserved in Mexico, that as early as the seven- 

 teenth century the national archives, unfortunately closed to the student, contained 

 all the elements necessary for a complete and detailed description of New Spain. 

 Nearly all the memoirs forwarded to the Council of the Indies were accompanied 

 by plans. Nevertheless, even the best maps were disfigured by errors' of half a 

 degree of latitude, and from one to two degrees of longitude. 



Alexander von Humboldt's journey in 1803 and 1804 has been described as a 

 " second discovery of Mexico." All the known parts of New Spain were certainly 

 not visited by the great explorer ; but his vast knowledge and intelligence enabled 

 him to co-ordinate the itineraries of his predecessors, comparing and controlling 

 one with another, and deducing from them, at least for the region of the plateau, 

 the true form of the Mexican relief. 



He also studied the physical phenomena of the land, its igneous eruptions and 

 thermal springs, the vertical disposition of its climates and flora, the direction and 

 force of the winds prevailing on this part of the planet, the extent of its rainfall, 

 the variations of its magnetic currents. Besides all this, he compared the mineral, 

 agricultural, and industrial resources of Mexico with those of other regions, and 

 thus determined its relative value amongst the civilised regions of the globe. 

 35 



