298 



and the disputants being generally more inte- 

 rested in prolonging than in terminating the 

 struggle, the nautical sciences, and the geography 

 of the New Continent, have alone gained by this 

 interminable litigation*. It may be remembered 

 how great an influence the bulls of the Popes 

 Nicholas V, and Alexander VII, the treaty of 

 Tordesillas, and the necessity of fixing the line 

 of demarcation, have had on the ardor with which 

 the solution of the problem of the longitude, the 

 correction of ephemerides, and the improvement 

 of mathematical instruments, have been sought. 

 When the affairs of Paraguay, and the possession 

 of the colony del Sacramento, became of great 

 importance to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, 

 commissioners of the boundaries were sent to the 

 Oroonoko, the Amazon, and the Rio Plata. 



With these idle persons, who filled the archives 

 with protests and statements, were some well- 

 informed engineers, and some naval officers 

 versed in the methods, that were proper to deter- 

 mine the situation of places far from the coast. 

 The little that was known, up to the end of the 

 last century, of the astronomical geography of the 

 interior of the New Continent, was owing to 

 those estimable and laborious men, the French 

 and Spanish academicians, who measured a me- 



* Ulloa, Dissert, kistorica y geogr. sobre el Meridiano de De- 

 marcacion,) Madrid, 1749, p. 41. Salazar de los Progressos de 

 la Navigacion en Espana, p- 115. 



