t time
Danish minister to the court of Madrid. But with these facilities
offered to him, he sails in June, 1799, from Corunna, whence he reaches
Teneriffe, makes short explorations of that island, ascending the peak,
and sailing straightway to America, where he lands in Cumana in the
month of July, and employs the first year and a half in the exploration
of the basin of the Orinoco and its connection with the Amazon. This was
a journey of itself, and completed a work of scientific importance,
establishing the fact that the two rivers were connected by an
uninterrupted course of water. He established for the first time the
fact that there was an extensive low plain, connected by water, which
circled the high table-land of Guiana. It was an important discovery in
physical geography, because it changed the ideas about water-courses and
about the distributions of mountains and plains in a manner which has
had the most extensive influence upon the progress of physical
geography. It may well be said that after this exploration of the
Orinoco, physical geography begins to appear as a part of science. From
Cumana he makes a short excursion to Havana, and hearing there of the
probable arrival of Baudin on the west coast of America, starts with the
intention of crossing at Panama. He arrives at Carthagena, but was
prevented by the advance of the season from crossing the Isthmus, and
changed his determination from want of precise information respecting
Baudin's locality. He determines to ascend the Magdalena River and visit
Santa Fe de Bogota, where, for several months, he explores the
construction of the mountains, and collects plants and animals; and, in
connection with his friend, Bonpland, who accompanied him from Paris, he
makes those immense botanical collections, which were afterward
published by Bonpland himself, and by Kunth after Bonpland had
determined on an expedition to South America. In the beginning of 1802
he reaches Quito, where, during four months, he turns his attention to
everything worth investigating, ascends the Chimborazo, to a height to
which no human foot had reached, anywhere; and, having completed this
survey and repeatedly crossed the Andes, he descends the southern slope
of the continent to the shore of the Pacific at Truxillo, and following
the arid coast of Peru, he visits finally Lima.

I will pass lightly over all the details of his journey, for they are
only incidents in that laborious exploratio