the famous volcanos of La Puebla, Popocatepetl, and Iztaccihuatl are the most distinguished. The first of these forms an enormous cone, of which the crater, continually inflamed and throwing up smoke and ashes, opens in the midst of eternal snows.

The market of Mexico is richly supplied with eatables, particularly with roots and fruits of every sort. It is a most interesting spectacle, which may be enjoyed every morning at sun-rise, to see these provisions, and a profusion of flowers, brought in by Indians in boats descending the canals of Istacalco and Chalco. The greater part of these roots are cultivated on the chinampas, called by the Europeans floating gardens. There are two sorts of them, of which the one is moveable, and driven about by the winds, and the other fixed and attached to the shore. The first alone merit the denomination of floating gardens, but their number is daily diminishing.

The city of Mexico is also remarkable for its excellent police. Most of the streets have very broad pavements; and they are clean and well lighted. These advantages are the fruits of the activity of the Count de Revillagigedo, who on his arrival found the capital extremely dirty.

Water is every where to be had in the soil of Mexico a very short way below the surface, but it is brackish, like the water of the lake of Tezcuco. The two aqueducts already mentioned, by which the city receives fresh water, are monuments of modern

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construction worthy of the traveller's attention. The springs of potable water are situated to the east of the town, one in the insulated hill of Chapoltepec, and the other in the cerros of Santa Fe, near the Cordillera which separates the valley of Tenochtitlan from that of Lerma and Toluca. The arches of the aqueduct of Chapoltepec occupy a length of near 11,000 feet. The water of Chapoltepec enters by the southern part of the city, at the Salto del Agua.

The valley of Tenochtitlan offers to the examination of naturalists two sources of mineral water, that of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, and that of the Peñon de los Baños. These sources contain carbonic acid, sulfate of lime and soda, and muriate of soda. Baths have been established there in a manner equally salutary and convenient. The Indians manufacture their salt near the Peñon de los Baños.

No city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico. I shall content myself here with naming the School of Mines, directed by the learned Elhuyar, to which we shall return when we come to speak of the mines; the Botanic Garden; and the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. This academy bears the title of Academia de las Nobles Artes de Mexico.

The revenues of the Academy of Fine Arts at

Mexico amount to above 5,000/. sterling, of which the Government gives 3,000l., the body of Mexican Miners 1,000/., the Consulado, or association of merchants of the capital, 1,000. It is impossible not to perceive the influence of this establishment on the taste of the nation. This influence is particularly visible in the symmetry of the buildings, in the perfection with which the hewing of stone is conducted, and in the ornaments of the capitals and stucco relievos. What a number of beautiful edifices are to be seen at Mexico! nay, even in provincial towns like Guanaxuato and Queretaro! These monuments, which frequently cost from 40,000l. to 60,000l. sterling, would appear to advantage in the finest streets of Paris, Berlin, and Petersburg. M. Tolsa, professor of sculpture at Mexico, has cast an equestrian statue of King Charles the Fourth, which, with the exception of the Marcus Aurelius at Rome, surpasses in beauty and purity of style every work of the kind in Europe. Instruction is communicated gratis at the Academy of Fine Arts. It is not confined alone to the drawing of landscapes and figures; they have had the good sense to employ other means for exciting the national industry. The academy labours successfully to introduce among the artisans a taste for elegance and beautiful forms. Large rooms well lighted by Argand's lamps, contain every evening some hundreds of young people, some of whom draw from relievo or

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living models, while others copy drawings of furniture, chandeliers, or other ornaments in bronze. In this assemblage (and this is (and this is very remarkable in the midst of a country where the prejudices of the nobility against the castes are so inveterate) rank, colour and race are confounded: we see the Indian and the Mestizo sitting beside the White, and the son of a poor artisan entering into competition with the children of the great lords of the country. It is a consolation to observe, that under every zone the cultivation of science and art establishes a certain equality among men, and obliterates, for a time at least, all those petty passions of which the effects are so prejudicial to social happiness.

Since the close of the reign of Charles the Third, and under that of Charles the Fourth, the study of the physical sciences has made great progress, not only in Mexico, but in general in all the Spanish colonies.

The principles of the new chemistry, which is known in the Spanish colonies by the equivocal appellation of new philosophy, (nueva filosofia,) are more diffused in Mexico than in many parts of the peninsula. A European traveller is surprised to meet in the interior of the country, on the very borders of California, with young Mexicans who reason on the decomposition of water in the process of amalgamation with free air. The School of Mines possesses a chemical laboratory; a geological collection, arranged according to the system

F

of Werner; a physical cabinet, in which we not only find the valuable instruments of Ramsden, Adams, Le Noir, and Louis Berthoud, but also models executed in the capital, with the greatest precision, and from the finest wood in the country. The best mineralogical work in the Spanish language was printed at Mexico, I mean the Manual of Oryctognosy, composed by M. del Rio, according to the principles of the school of Freyberg, in which the author was formed. The first Spanish translation of Lavoisier's Elements of Chemistry was also published at Mexico. I cite these insulated facts, because they give us the measure of the ardour with which the exact sciences are beginning to be studied in the capital of New Spain. This ardour is much greater than that with which they addict themselves to the study of languages and ancient literature.

Instruction in mathematics is less carefully attended to in the university of Mexico than in the School of Mines. The pupils of this last establishment go further into analysis; they are instructed in the integral and differential calculi. On the return of peace and free intercourse with Europe, when astronomical instruments (chronometers, sextants, and the repeating circles of Borda) shall become more common, young men will be found in the most remote parts of the kingdom capable of making observations, and calculating them after the most recent methods.