from the necessities of the so-called Imperial Government, and in part from the tendencies of the French officers to signalize their career by a thorough investigation of the character and capacities of the countries in which they are assigned to duty. The Geographical and Statistical Society of Mexico became an efficient scientific body, and the papers addressed to it and read at its sessions, were interesting and important. Among these we note: "Photographs and descriptions of two Aztec figures, sculptured upon a stone which formed a part of the walls of the City of Orizaba ;" an elaborate work, in two volumes, entitled "A descriptive and comparative representation of the native languages of Mexico;" statistics of the geography, census, etc., of the department of Vera Cruz; a memoir, with views and plans, illustrating the narrative of the scientific expedition sent by the Government to study the ruins of Metlatoyuca, recently discovered in the district of Tulancingo; statistics of Choapan; a topographical plan of the City of Parras; a notice in regard to the population of the department of Jalisco; geographical and physical details relative to the City of Guadalaxara; a hydrographical chart of the river Atoyac, drawn by a government commission ordered to investigate the navigability of the stream; a topographical plan of the City of Monterey; a memoir upon the inundations and droughts of Metztitlan, with statistical and geographical notes; statistical notes on the District of Apam; a table of statistics concerning the department of Queretaro; memoir upon the agricultural condition of the district of Huatusco, in the department of Vera Cruz; meteorological observations made at Monterey in 1865, with an indication of the mean temperature of each month of the year; account of national and foreign colonies established in Mexico; notes upon the industry, agriculture, and mines of New Leon, by Senor J. M. Aguilar; description of the principal streams of the island of Carinen; the geographical and statistical state of the empire after the new territorial division by Colonel Soto; report upon the culture of sugar-cane, coffee, tobacco, cotton, and other products, which constitute the principal wealth of Mexico, prepared by a commission designated by the Mexican Geographical Society. All these papers are published by the Society in its Bulletin. From that on the department of Vera Cruz, we take the following statistics: The department is divided into seven districts, seventeen cantons, four principal cities, fourteen towns, and one hundred and fifty-seven villages. The population of the department amounts to 338,148 inhabitants, who are distributed through the seven districts as follows: Vera Cruz, 68,040; Jalapa, 61,244; Orizaba, 55,000; Tuxpan, 46,339; Tampico of Vera Cruz, 39,407 Cordova, 35,458; Jalacingo, 32,660. The department is naturally divided into the low or hot lands, and the temperate or high lands. The population dwelling in the

former is 153,786; in the latter, 184,362. The area of the department is 125,247 square kilometers, and the density of the population 0.69 to the square kilometer. The population of the City of Vera Cruz is 37,040; that of Jalapa, 37,200; that of Orizaba, 15,524; that of Cordova, 4,396. The Abbé E. Domenech, already distinguished by his explorations of the ancient cities and ruins of Mexico, has been very active, during the administration of Maximilian in Mexico, in prosecuting further investigations into the geography and antiquities of the country. In connection with his narrative of a journey undertaken for scientific purposes, from Mexico to Durango, over the elevated table lands of the country, the Abbé gives some important statistics in regard to the City of Mexico, not hitherto accessible. The latitude of the city is 19° 25′ 45" north; its longitude 101° 25' 30" west, from Paris; its altitude, the mean of five observations by eminent physi cists, is 2,257 meters=7,602 feet. Water boils at 98 centigrade=208°.4 Fahrenheit. The dryness of the atmosphere causes Deluc's hygrometer to descend to 15°; that of Saussure to 42°. The prevalent winds are from the northeast and north. He gives the elevation of Queretaro as 1,846 meters=6,241 feet;_that of Guanajuato, 2,191 meters=7,383 feet; Zacatecas, 2,485 meters=8,374 feet; and Durango, 1,928 meters 6,497 feet. A census of Mexico, taken in 1865, and published late in 1866, gives the population of the country as 8,218,080, and the number of square miles as 712,850. The most populous of the fifty departments into which the country is divided, are: Guanajuato, 601,850 inhabitants; the valley of Mexico, 481,796; Puebla, 467,788; Aguascalientes, 433,151; Guerrero, 424,836; and Michoacan, 417,378; the smallest, Lower California, which, with a territory as large as Wisconsin, has but 12,420 inhabitants, and Mapimi, with a territory of the same size as South Carolina, and but 6,777 inhabitants. The population of the valley of Mexico is far more dense than that of any other department, its territory being only about twice the size of Rhode Island, and its population about 192 to the square mile.

5. Central America.-Professor Karl von Seebach, who visited Central America in 1864– '5, gives in the "Philosophical Transactions" of Göttingen a very interesting account of the Volcano of Izalco, one of the most remarkable of the numerous volcanic mountains of that land of earthquakes and lava floods. It is situated in the State of San Salvador, about ten miles north of Sonsonate, in 13° 48′ north latitude and 89° 39' west longitude from Greenwich. This volcano and that of Jorullo in Mexico, are the only ones on the Western Continent known to have been forined in modern times. A brief, but generally accurate account of its origin and action up to 1859 is given in the NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPÆDIA, vol. ix., p. 671, though its height is there stated inaccurately. Professor von Seebach

measured its height very carefully, and makes it 1,976 English feet above the sea level, while it was only 740 feet above the village of Izalco. The behavior of the volcano since 1859 has been somewhat singular. It was not perceptibly affected by the earthquake of December 8, 1859, which was so severe as to destroy the large stone church of the neighboring village of Izalco; but its eruptions have not been quite so constant since that time, and in 1863 it emitted a considerable stream of lava sufficient to cover the mass of stones and ashes forming its southern slope, as with a mantle. It has now three small craters within the principal crater, one about thirty, one fifty, and another sixty feet in diameter. Professor von Seebach estimates the solid contents of the volcanic mountain at 949,820,000 cubic feet. All this has been thrown up in about seventy-two years. This learned and indefatigable traveller traversed all the Central American States, giving special attention to the numerous volcanoes of the Cordilleras of Central America, and his researches have made us more familiar with the topography and extent of these safety-valves of the continent than those of any previous trav

eller.

II. SOUTH AMERICA. 1. The United States of Colombia. General Mosquera, now for the third time President of these States, has published within the last year a very complete hand-book of the country over which he presides, under the title of "Compendio de Geografía General de los Estados de Colombia." It is accompanied by an atlas of maps, corrected from the surveys of Codazzi and others, under the general's special directions. This work gives a very full and satisfactory account of the present condition of these States. Apropos of the atlas which accompanies this work, M. Elisée Reclus, in a report made to the Société de Géographie in August, 1866, gives a sketch of the geographical explorations of Agostino Codazzi, an Italian geographer long resident in Colombia, who was engaged from 1850 to 1856 in surveying and triangulating the territories comprised in the United States of Colombia, and who finally fell a victim to his zeal and devotion in 1856 at Camperucho, in the valley of the Rio Cesar. Judging from M. Reclus' narrative, all that Colombia has of accurate topographical surveys, with the exception of the British surveys of the coast, she owes to Codazzi, whose laborious and careful surveys and descriptions still remain unpublished. In 1855 Codazzi's surveys joined those of Lieutenant Strain on the Isthmus of Darien, though they did not, like his, terminate in disaster.

2. Peru and Bolivia.-Mr. E. G. Squier communicates to the London Athenæum in February, 1866, his discovery of a lake near Cuzco, in the Andes, which had two distinct and opposite outlets, one flowing into Lake Titicaca, the other into one of the affluents of the Amazon. This lake is situated in 14° 30′

south latitude, 70° 50' west longitude from Greenwich, and is about 14,500 feet above the level of the sea.

Herr Hugo Reck, a German civil engineer, who has for many years been resident in Bolivia, is continuing in Petermann's Mittheilungen his descriptive geography of that country. There has been no official census taken since 1845-'6, and in that the number of wild or savage Indians was estimated, though with tolerable accuracy. At that date the Hispano-American population and the partially civilized Indians numbered 1,378,896 persons, and the savage or independent Indians were estimated at 760,000, making a grand total of 2,138,896 for the whole population of the Republic. Senor Ondarza, who published a map of the country in 1859, made his estimate of the population in 1858 from the returns of the provinces, and put down the population, except the savage Indians, at 1,742,352 persons, while, according to time, the number of savages had fallen off to 245,000, giving a grand aggregate of 1,987,352. Still later, in 1861, in an "Essay toward the History of Bolivia," by Manuel José Cortés, published at Sucre (the Capital of the Republic) in 1861, the entire population is stated at 2,236,116 persons. The population of the several departments is not given by Cortés, but Ondarza states them, in 1858, as follows: La Paz, 475,322; Cochabamba, 349,892; Potosi, 281,229; Chuquisaca, 223,668; Omro, 110,931; Santa Cruz, 153,164; Tanja, 88,900; Veni, 53,973; Atacama, 5,273. The area of the Republic is stated by Herr Reck as 843,307 square miles. The Republic is divided into nine departments, and has 12 capital cities, 35 other cities, 282 small towns or villages, 2,755 hamlets, and 7,823 isolated farms or ranches. The population averages about 2.9 to the square mile.

The attention of geographers has, during the past two years, been largely attracted toward Brazil, where three separate expeditions have been engaged in exploring some of its great rivers. Professor Agassiz, with a corps of able assistants, explored the lower Amazons, mainly for the purpose of ascertaining the new genera and species of fishes, radiates, mollusks, and zoophytes therein contained, though with general reference also to the animals and plants which inhabit its shores, and the geology_and paleontology of the region. Mr. W. Chandless, an English traveller and geographer, made two exploring tours, at his own expense, with competent assistance, up the Purûs, one of the largest tributaries of the upper Amazons, to near its source, with a view of ascertaining whether there was, as reported, a navigable or practical communication between the waters of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific through the supposed connection between this river and the Madre de Dios, a river of Southern Peru, having its sources in the Andes, and discharging its waters into the Pacific. A third expedition, undertaken somewhat earlier, at the direction of the Brazilian Government, but not published

until 1866, was that of M. Liais, a French engineer, to explore the Rio San Francisco, one of the most important rivers of Southern Brazil, which passes for nearly a thousand miles through the province of Minas-Geraes, the great mining and diamond district of Brazil.

Professor Agassiz spent ten months on the Amazons and its tributaries, and, either in person or by members of his corps, explored most of its larger tributaries, penetrating to the boundaries of Peru. He also explored some other portions of the empire. He has added materially to our knowledge of this mighty river and the broad valley or plain through which it flows. The remarkably level region through which the Amazons passes is an interesting feature, and one, which makes it eminently a highway of the nations. In a distance of 3,000 miles from its mouth the elevation is only 210 feet, less than nine inches in ten miles. Owing to this fact, and to its great breadth and depth, it is navigable for the largest steamers for a greater distance than any other river on the globe. Some of its tributaries, especially those on the south, at a distance of four or five hundred miles above their junction with the Amazons, have rapid cataracts or falls; but far beyond the boundaries of Peru the main river has none. Professor Agassiz states that the river bears three different names in different parts of its course: from the mouth of the Rio Negro to the Atlantic it is the Rio Amazonas or Amazons; from Tabatinga, on the borders of Ecuador, through the territory of Ecuador, and to the mouth of the Rio Negro, it is called the Solimos or Solimoens; that portion of the river above Tabatinga, from its source in the Andes downward, is called the Maranon. The Amazons, throughout the greater part of its length, at least to the junction of the Napo in Ecuador, varies very little, not more than two or three degrees from a due west to east course, and is therefore almost wholly in the same latitude; this is not the case with any other river of the first class. All the other great rivers of the world pass over many degrees of latitude, and are of course in different climates in different portions of their course. The Amazons is wholly within the tropics, and within three or four degrees of the equator; but it is not on this account so hot and sickly a climate as would be supposed; the average temperature of the year is 84° F., the extremes 72° and 92°, and the climate is very healthful. The waters of the river are turbid and of a milky color, from the white clay which they hold in suspension. The tributaries which rise in the mountains are all of this milky color; but those which rise in the woody plains have their waters black, or rather of a dark amber color, or, in some cases, of a deep green. The Rio Negro derives its name from this dark color of its waters. The vegetable life of the valley of the Amazons is abundant, almost excessive, but it is peculiar. The palms are very abundant and of great variety. The lianas or parasitic plants are exceed

ingly numerous, and many of them belong tc the orchid family. The fruits, instead of being as with us of the rose family, are almost all myrtles. The variety of beautiful and durable woods is very great, several hundred species fit for ship-building, for furniture, and for building houses having been observed. One hundred and seventeen distinct species, all of excellent quality, were procured from a lot half a mile square. The aromatic and medicinal trees, plants, and shrubs, abound. The cinchona, the india rubber, the pepper, and other valuable trees, are found in large tracts. Animal life is equally abundant. Previous to his visit to Brazil, but little over one hundred species of fishes were known to exist in Brazil. During his stay he discovered over eighteen hundred new species, many of them belonging to genera and classes elsewhere unrepresented. Among the quadrupeds there were many new species. There were about sixty species of monkeys, all differing from those in other parts of the globe in having prehensile tails. The intercommunication throughout this whole region, the professor thinks, must be always by water; fast steamers can, in consequence of the interlacings of the rivers, visit almost every portion of the valley of the Amazons, and the annual floods will not permit in that region of any extended railroads.

Mr. Chandless's exploration of the River Purûs was deemed of so much importance and value that he was presented by the Royal Geographical Society with the founder's medal. The Purûs is one of the southern affluents of the Amazons, discharging itself into that river by four mouths, near the 61st meridian west from Greenwich. Repeated attempts had been made to explore it previously, by commissions from the Brazilian Government, but they had proved failures. Mr. Chandless, however, succeeded, with a crew of Bolivian Indians, in ascending it for 1,866 miles, or to within about 20 miles of its source, and mapped it accurately. He found the river very tortuous in its course, but unobstructed by rapids, and navigable about to its source. The Madre de Dios, the Peruvian river, proved not to be the head waters of the Purûs, that river having its source two degrees farther north. The small tribes of Indians near its sources had never been in communication with the semi-civilized tribes lower down, and still used their primitive stone hatchets. They had dogs, but no fowls. Tapirs and capibaras were extremely numerous in this remote solitude, and very tame. Mr. Chandless approached the sources of the stream, the river forked, and both forks were obstructed by rocks and rapids. the farthest point reached on the north fork was 10° 36' 44" south latitude; 72° 9' west longitude from Greenwich. On the south fork, 10° 52′ 52′′ south latitude; and 72° 17' west longitude. The height above the sea level was at this point 1,088 feet. In a second voyage Mr. Chandless explored the Aquiry, the principal branch of

As

the Purûs from the southward, in order to ascertain whether there was any connection between this and the Madre de Dios, but again found there was none. Professor Agassiz states that some members of his corps ascended the Purâs, and, about five hundred miles from its mouth, found an affluent connecting it with the Madeira.

M. Liais, in his exploration of the Rio San Francisco, brought to light much that was of interest and importance concerning it. The river had generally been reputed to be about 1,350 miles in length. He demonstrated that the main stream was 1861 miles in length, and that some of its affluents extended even farther south than the principal stream. At a little more than 200 miles from the sea it passes through a defile of granite, whose walls tower high above it on both sides, and at 192 miles from the sea it leaps in three successive cataracts over the granite barrier two hundred and eighty-three feet. The principal of these falls (the lowermost or nearest the sea) is two hundred and two feet in height. Though narrower than the cataract of Niagara, the volume of water is nearly or quite as great as that of Niagara, and the fall more than fifty feet farther. M. Liais, who has witnessed both, thinks the fall of the San Francisco grander on a close approach, though not so impressive when seen from a distance. The cataracts bear the name of Paulo Alfonso. For sixty or seventy miles below these falls, and for nearly two hundred above them, the channel of the river is obstructed by rapids and rocks, but for a distance of 125 miles from the sea to its mouth the river is placid and majestic in its flow, and well adapted for navigation by the largest vessels. For nearly 200 miles above the falls the obstructions are numerous, but above these it is navigable for large steamers for nearly a thousand miles. In this part of its course it receives numerous affluents, the most important of which are the Rio das Velhas, the Paracatù, and the Rio Grande. After receiving the last-named tributary the San Francisco is about one and one-fifth miles in width. The extreme upper portion of the river is rocky and obstructed by rapids; but the thousand miles of continuous navigable waters traverse the province of Minas Geraes, the principal diamond and gold region of Brazil, and this can be more effectually opened to cominerce by a railroad starting from the rapids or falls in the river, and extending to Bahia or Pernambuco, and running in connection with steamers on the San Francisco, than by any other route. The country M. Liais represents as wonderfully beautiful, and possessing a delightful climate. The gold mines of Minas Geraes are, like those of Colorado, combined to a considerable extent with iron and copper pyrites, and though exceedingly rich, yield but a small return to the miners by the rude processes hitherto adopted. The search for diamonds is so uncertain in its results, that it is almost a lottery. After working for a year

without success sufficient to defray expenses, the contractor may suddenly come upon a few diamonds of such value as to make him rich at once. Diamonds are not, as is usually supposed, found in a gangue of talcose quartz or itacolumite, but in serpentine or micaceous rock.

The returns of population in Brazil, taken in 1865, and published in 1866, give the population of the empire as 9,106,000. This is, we suppose, independent of the savage Indian tribes, whose numbers can only be estimated from very imperfect data. This population is distributed among the provinces in the following proportions in round numbers: Amazonas, 70,000; Para, 250,000; Maranham, 400,000; Piauhy, 175,000; Ceara, 486,000; Rio Grande do Norte, 210,000; Parahyba, 260,000; Pernambuco, 1,180,000; Alagoas, 250,000; Sergipe, 250,000; Bahia, 1,200,000; Espirito Santo, 55,000; Rio de Janeiro, 850,000; the city of Rio Janeiro, 400,000; Sao Paulo, 800,000; Parana, 100,000; Santa Catharina, 120,000; Rio Grande do Sul, 420,000; Minas Geraes, 1,350,000; Goyaz, 200,000, and Matto Grosso, 80,000.

Buenos Ayres.-Herr Burmeister, a German geographer, for some years resident in the city and State of Buenos Ayres, communicated in 1866 to Professor Dove, of Berlin, a very elaborate article on the climatology of the country, based on four years' observations. Buenos Ayres, being in the South Temperate Zone, has its winter during the months corresponding to our summer, and its summer during our winter months. We can only give the maximum and minimum of the thermometer and barometer during the different seasons of each year, omitting many valuable statistics of the climate in Herr Burmeister's dissertation. The maximum temperature in January, 1862, was 93° Fahrenheit; in January, 1863, 95°; in January, 1864, 94°; in January, 1865, 86°.4. The minimum temperature of the same month was in 1862, 59°; in 1863, 51°.4; in 1864, 60°; in 1865, 60°.3. In February, 1862, the maximum was 93°.9; in 1863, 88°; in 1864, 93°; in 1865, 90°. The minimum for the same month in 1862 was 52°.2; in 1863, 56°; in 1864, 59°.3; in 1865, 57°.6. In April, 1862, the maximum was 83°.8; in 1863, 81°.2; in 1864, 84°.2; in 1865, 87°.2. The minimum for the same month in 1862 was 47°.8; in 1863, 39°.2; in 1864, 39°.2; in 1865, 43°. In May, 1862, the maximum was 73°.6; in 1863, 71°.6; in 1864, 73°.4; in 1865, 65°.3. The minimum for the same month in 1863 was 43°.2; in 1863, 36°.5; in 1864, 41°; in 1865, 38°.8. In July (a winter month), 1862, the maximum was 64°.8; in 1863, 62°.4; in 1864, 57°.4; in 1865, 63°.5. The minimum for the same month in 1862 was 28°; in 1863, 33°.8: in 1864, 32°.4; in 1865, 30°.9. In August, 1862, the maximum was 64°.6; in 1863, 73°.4; in 1864, 73°.4; in 1865, 66°.2. The minimum for the same month in 1862 was 32°; in 1863, 35°.6; in 1864, 34°.5; in 1865, 33°.1. In October, 1862, the maximum was 70°; in 1863, 78°.3; in 1864, 75°.6; in 1865.