413 



This observation made known to us at the same 

 time, with sufficient precision for the purposes of 

 geography, the positions of the mouth of the 

 Pacimoni, of the fortress of San Carlos, and 

 of the junction of the Cassiquiare with the 

 Rio Negro. The rock of Culimacari is precise- 

 ly in 2° 0' 42" of latitude, and probably in 

 69° 33' 50" of longitude. I stated in two me- 

 moirs written in Spanish, and addressed, one to 

 the captain general of Caraccas, the other to the 

 minister, secretary of state, Mr. d'Urquijo, all 

 that was interesting in these astronomical de- 

 terminations relatively to the knowledge of the 

 limits of the Portuguese colonies. At the time 

 of the expedition of Solano, the junction of the 

 Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro was placed half a 

 degree north of the equator* ; and although the 

 commission of boundaries never obtained a de- 

 finitive result, the equator has always been 

 regarded in the missions as a limit provisionally 

 recognized. Now it results from my observa- 

 tions, that San Carlos del Rio Negro*^, or, as 



* The real latitude of this junction appears to me to differ 

 little from 2° 2'. It's longitude is 70° 0'. 



f Mr. Faden also, in his map of South America, placed 

 S. Carlos in lat. 0° 54 7 j and Mr. Arrowsmith, not in the 

 edition of 1811, but in the first edition of 1804, made the 

 equator pass (like La Cruz), one degree too far to the north, 

 through the mouth of the Uteta, or Xie. We must not be 

 surprised, that the maps of Brazil, constructed recently at the 

 Hydrographic Depot of Rio Janeiro, mark San Carlos nearly 



