ON THE KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN. CONTAINING Researches relative to the Geography of Mexico, The Population, the State of Agriculture and Manufacturing The Canals projected between the South Sea and Atlantic Ocean, The Quantity of the precious Metals which have flowed from Mexico And the Military Defence of New Spain. BY ALEXANDER DE HUMBOLDT. WITH PHYSICAL SECTIONS AND MAPS, FOUNDED ON ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS, AND TRIGONOMETRICAL TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY JOHN BLACK. VOL. I. THIRD EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, #558 FATERNOSTER-ROW. 1822. 30811 F 1311 488&E V. 1 PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. Ir is observed by a popular French writer, Bernardin de St. Pierre, that by far the most valuable and entertaining part of modern literature is the department filled up by travellers. While the knowledge of the ancients extended merely to a small circle around them, and even there was far from accurate, there is hardly a nook in the most remote corner of the world of which we do not now possess some description, and with the inhabitants of which we are not more or less acquainted. We see the human race before us in every stage of civilization, from the refinement and enterprize of the inhabitants of the west of Europe, down to the A 2 |