INTRODUCTION. 



19 



that if all the present inhabitants of Europe and Asia 

 could be transported to America, its fruitful bosom 

 could furnish means of subsistence for them all The 

 whole of the Spanish possessions may be said to enjoy 

 a temperate climate; lying between thirty-eight de- 

 grees north, and fifty-four degrees south, they never 

 experience extreme cold; and between the tropics, 

 even under the equator, the heats are not greater than 

 in some of the temperate climates of Europe.^ 



The position of South America as relates to the 

 United States, to Europe, Africa, and Asia, hold out 

 the most singular advantages for commerce. When 

 the commerce of the east, comes to receive that di- 

 rection which seems to be pointed out by nature^ 

 through the Carribean sea and the gulf of Mexico, 

 Americit will then be the acknowledged centre of the 

 earth. There are scarcely any of the vegetable, or 

 animal productions of the other parts of the world, 

 which may not be easily naturalized here, not to 

 speak of a variety found no where else. Of the pre- 

 cious metals, America may be considered the treasury 

 of all civilized nations;! and, therefore, as possessing 

 the power to regulate their activity and enterprize. In 

 Spices, gums, and in articles useful in the materia 

 medica, she equals, if not surpasses, the East Indies. 



* The climate of Rio Janeiro has been compared bj an English 

 writer to that of Naples. During the time we were in irouth 

 America, we experienced at no time so great a degree of heat, as 

 that which we felt in the month of July near Norfolk, on our re- 

 turn. 



t The quantity of gold and silver annually sent by the new con* 

 tinent into Europe, amounts to more than nine-tenths of the whole 

 mines in the known world. The Spanish coloiiies for example. 



