XX 



tion of a greater number of readers than the 

 detail of observations merely scientific, or 

 than my researches on the population, the 

 commerce, and the mines of New Spain. 

 I may therefore be permitted to enume- 

 rate in this place all that we have hitherto 

 published. When several works are inter- 

 woven in some sort with each other, it may 

 perhaps be interesting to the reader, to 

 know the sources from which he may ob- 

 tain more circumstantial information. In 

 the journey of Pallas, which is so remark- 

 able for the precision and depth of his 

 researches, the same Atlas contains geogra- 

 phical maps, the costumes of different 

 nations, relicks of antiquity, and figures 

 of plants and animals. In conformity to 

 the plan of our work, we have distributed 

 these plates into distinct parts ; having 

 divided them into the two geographical and 

 physical Atlasses, which belong to the nar- 

 rative of the travels, and the Political Essay 

 on the Kingdom of Ne w Spain ; the Views 

 of the Cordilleras, and the monuments of 

 the natives of America ; and the Equinoctial 

 Plants, the Monography of the Melastomas, 

 and the Collection of zoological observations. 



