178 



river of the Tocantins, and following the course of the Ara- 

 guay, 40 leagues to the west of Villaboa, towards the point 

 where the Rio Parana cuts the tropic of Capricorn, we divide 

 Brazil into two parts. That on the west comprehends the 

 captain-generalship of Grand Park, Rio Negro, and Matto 

 Grosso j it is almost wholly uninhabited, and contains Euro-r 

 pean settlements only on the banks of rivers, on those of the 

 Rio Negro, Rio Branco, the Amazon, and the Guapore, which 

 unites with the Rio Madeira. It is 1 38,156 square leagues in 

 extent (20 to a degree), while the eastern part, comprehend- 

 ing the captain-generalship of the coast, Minas-Geraes, and 

 Goyaz, is 118,830 square leagues. My estmates are con*- 

 formable to those of a very distinguished geographer, M, 

 Adrien Balbi, who computes 2,250,000 square Italian miles 

 (250,000 square marine leagues), for the whole Brazilian 

 empire, excluding as I have done, the Cisplatine province 

 and that of the Missions, on the east of the Uruguay, 

 (Essai statistlque sur le Portugal, torn, ii, p. 229.) 



United States, I have already remarked in another 

 place {Political Essay, Vol. i, p. 13), that it became diffi- 

 cult to estimate the surface of the territory of the United 

 States, in square leagues, since the acquisition of Louisiana, 

 of which the northern and eastern boundaries long remained 

 undetermined. They are now fixed by the convention con- 

 cluded in London, October 20th, 1818, and by the treaty of 

 the Floridas, signed at Washington, February 22d, 1819.. 

 I have therefore thought I might make this question the sub- 

 ject of fresh researches. I have devoted myself to this task 

 with the greater care, as the surface of the United States 



forms a sort of delta on the north-west around the inundated 

 lands of Carapaporis, M. de la Condamine perhaps considered 

 the small river which flows opposite the isle Tururi as the 

 Western branch of the Araguari. 



