PREFACE. 
N June 1867, my father ami I, who had been studying (lie 
maps and plans of a former expedition in the province 
of Parana, were commissioned hy tlie Minister of Public 
Works at Eio de Janeiro to explore the Madeira Eiver, and to project 
a railroad along its bank Avhere, l)y reason of the I'apids, navigation 
was rendered impossible. 
Since the end of the last century — when, in consecpience of the 
treaty of Ildefonso in 1777, Portuguese astronomers and surveyors 
ascended the Madeira — ^no regular or reliable plans had been executed 
of the immense forest-covered vallej^ The bold descent etfected some 
twenty years ago by the American naval officer Gibbon, I may observe, 
was too hurried, and undertaken with too slender means j and another 
expedition, commanded by the Praziliau engineer. Major Coutinho, 
proved to be a complete failure, though certainly not for lack of 
means.* 
Upon the ensuing of peace, after the long Avar with Paraguay, 
the old question of a Avay of communication between the Praziliau 
coast and the province of Mato Grosso came to the front; and as 
that clever diplomatist, Conselheiro Pelippe Lopez Netto, had also 
succeeded in concluding a treaty of boundaries and commerce with 
Bolivia,! by which Avas secured the prospect of a passage through 
the valley of the Madeira, it was thought necessary that a thorough 
* Another voyage of discovery undertaken Ly Mr. Coutinho on the Purus (an 
affluent of the Solimoes) gave similar negative results. That river afterwards became 
better known through the daring of Mr. Chandloss. 
t By this treaty the Brazilio-Bolivian boundary is to touch the loft shore of tlie 
Madeu'a under 10° 20' south latitude, near the mouth of the Beni. 
