138 



SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



and durino- the seventeenth century by Samuel Fritz, and so many other Jesuit 

 and Franciscan missionaries, who visited all the tribes, ascended all the streams, 

 and crossed all the portages of the Colombian plains. 



Durin"- the two and a half centuries of Spanish rule the work of exploration 

 was reserved for official surveyors, the results of whose labours were jealously 

 ffuarded in the Government archives. Some of the documents, connected not 

 only with the quest for gold, precious stones, or slaves, but even with scientific 

 research, have not yet seen the light. At the close of the last century the 

 naturalist José de Caldas, later executed as a rebel by the Spaniards, traversed 

 everv part of the country to study its soil and inhabitants. 



Thus was begun the scientific work continued with such brilliant results by 

 Humboldt, Boussingault, and many other explorers, foreign and native, down to 

 the present time. Of the preliminary work preparatory to a general description 

 of Colombia, the largest share falls to the credit of Agostino Codazzi, the same 

 geoo-rapher to whom we are indebted for what still remains the best map of Vene- 

 zuela. His map of Colombia, constructed on the scale of 1 : 1,350,000, from his 

 own surveys taken in the years 1849-55, is also the most trustworthy document of 

 the kind, and will continue to be chiefly consulted pending the construction 

 of a chart on a more ample scale.* Such a work will soon be possible, for the 

 engineers have already prepared sectional maps on scales ranging from the ten to 

 the fifty thousandth, while millions of acres of unoccupied lands have been 

 surveyed with a view to Government concessions and sales. The geographer 

 Vergara y Velasco has already consulted all these topographical documents in the 

 preparation of his great work on Colombia, where over two thousand positions 

 had been astronomically determined before the year 1893. 



Colombia presents exceptional advantages to colonists of every race. Like 

 Mexico it offers, from sea-level to the mountain summits, the regular succession 

 of all climates — heat, moderate temperature, cold, combined according to the 

 slopes and aspects witli varying degrees of dryness or moisture. But in Mexico 

 the transitions are abrupt, and the temperate zone is represented only by compara- 

 tively narrow belts, whereas in the more highly favoured Colombia the healthy 

 plateaux and foothills project far beyond the central alpine mass. Thus the 

 regions enjoying a climate of average temperature similar to that of West Europe 

 occupy a vast space large enough to support tens of millions of inhabitants. With 

 the exception of the Santa ^larta group, the Colombian ranges ramify like the 

 ribs of a fan towards the north and north-east, and are so disposed as to present 



* Chief itineraries of Colombia and Venezuela in chronolosrical order : ■ 



1534 

 1535 

 1535 

 1536 

 1537 

 1537 

 1537 

 1539 

 1539 



Gonzalo Pizarro 

 Orellana 

 Berrio . 

 Juan de Sosa . 

 La Condamine 

 Solano . 

 Humboldt . 

 Boussingault . 

 Schomburs:k . 



1540 

 1540 

 1591 

 1609 

 1740 

 1763 

 1799 

 1831 

 1840 



