INTEODTJOTIOIT. 
XI? 
mical observations, iT ad I adopted a mode of composition which 
would have included in one and the same chapter all that has 
been observed on one particular point of the globe, I should 
have prepared a work of cumbrous length, and devoid of that 
clearness which arises in a great measure from the methodical 
distribution of matter. Notwithstanding the efforts I have made 
to avoid, in this narrative, the errors I had to dread, I feel con- 
scious that I have not always succeeded in separating the obser- 
vations of detail from those general results which interest every 
enlightened mind. These results comprise in one view the 
climate and its influence on organized beings, the aspect of the 
country, varied according to the nature of the soil and its vege- 
table covering, the direction of the mountains and rivers which 
separate races of men as well as tribes of plants ; and finally, the 
modifications observable in the condition of people living in 
different latitudes, and in circumstances more or less favourable 
to the development of their faculties. I do not fear having too 
much enlarged on objects so worthy of attention: one of the 
noblest characteristics which distinguish modern civilization from 
that of remoter times is, that it has enlarged the mass of our con- 
ceptions, rendered us more capable of perceiving the connection 
between the physical and intellectual world, and thrown a more 
general interest over objects which heretofore occupied only a 
few scientific mon, because those objects were contemplated 
separately, and from a narrower point of view. 
As it is probable that these volumes will obtain the attention of 
a greater number of readers than the detail oi my observations 
merely scientific, or my researches on the population, the com- 
merce, and the mines of New Spain, I may be permitted here to 
enumerate all the works whion I have hitherto published con- 
jointly with M. Bonpland, When several works are interwoven 
in some sort with each other, it may perhaps be interesting to 
the reader to know the sources whence he may obtain more 
circumstantial information. 
I. Astronomical observations, trigonometrical operations, and ba- 
rometrical measurements made during the course of a journey to the 
equinoctial regions of the New Continent, from 1799 to 1804. This 
work, to which are added historical researches on the position 
of several points important to navigators, contains, first, the 
original observations which I made from the twelfth degree of 
southern to the forty-first degree of northern latitude ; the tran- 
sits of the sun and stars over the meridian; distances of the 
moon from the sun and the stars ; occultations of the satel- 
lites ; eclipses of the sun and moon ; transits of Mercury over the 
disc of the sun ; azimuths ; circum-meridian altitudes of the 
moon, to determine the longitude by the differences of declina- 
tion ; researches on the relative intensity of the light of th« 
