Chart of the West Coast of South America, 1698The information provided by maps can be amazingly powerful. In 1680 the captain of the Spanish ship the Rosario, threw his valuable collection of maps into the sea. You may ask why any sane sea captain would do such a thing?The Captains maps showed the Pacific coast of Central and Southern America, and included details previously unknown to the English. The Rosario had been captured by an English ship, and the Captain believed it was better to destroy the maps than to allow the English to obtain such valuable information. But the English managed to recover the maps, and to return them safely to London. This map of the west coast of South America is by William Hack. It is one of a series of maps copied from those saved by the English ship.Expedition to South America. Humboldt,Bonpland

The conviction had grown in Humboldt that his real aim in life was scientific exploration, and in 1797 he resigned from his post to acquire with great single-mindedness a thorough knowledge of the systems of geodetic, meteorological, and geomagnetic measurements. The political upheavals caused by the Napoleonic Wars prevented the realization of several scientific expeditions in which Humboldt had been given an opportunity to participate. At last, dispirited by his disappointments but refusing to be deterred from his purpose, he obtained permission from the Spanish government to visit the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. These colonies were then accessible only to Spanish officials and the Roman Catholic mission. Completely shut off from the outside world, they offered enormous possibilities to a scientific explorer. Humboldt's social standing assured him of access to official circles, and in the Spanish prime minister Mariano de Urquijo he found an enlightened man who supported his application to the king for a royal permit. In the summer of 1799 he set sail from Marseille accompanied by the French botanist Aim Bonpland, whom he had met in Paris, then the liveliest scientific centre in Europe. The estate he had inherited at the death of his mother enabled Humboldt to finance the expedition entirely out of his own pocket.

Humboldt and Bonpland spent five years, from 1799 to 1804, in Central and South America, covering more than 6,000 miles (9,650 kilometres) on foot, on horseback, and in canoes. It was a life of great physical exertion and serious deprivation.Starting from Caracas, they travelled south through grasslands and scrublands until they reached the banks of the Apure, a tributary of the Orinoco River. They continued their journey on the river by canoe as far as the Orinoco. Following its course and that of the Casiquiare, they proved that the Casiquiare River formed a connection between the vast river systems of the Amazon and the Orinoco. For three months Humboldt and Bonpland moved through dense tropical forests, tormented by clouds of mosquitoes and stifled by the humid heat. Their provisions were soon destroyed by insects and rain; the lack of food finally drove them to subsist on ground-up wild cacao beans and river water. Yet both travellers, buoyed up by the excitement provided by the new and overwhelming impressions, remained healthy and in the best of spirits until their return to civilization, when they succumbed to a severe bout of fever.After a short stay in Cuba, Humboldt and Bonpland returned to South America for an extensive exploration of the Andes. From Bogot to Trujillo, Peru, they wandered over the Andean Highlands--following a route now traversed by the Pan-American Highway, in their time a series of steep, rocky, and often very narrow paths. They climbed a number of peaks, including all the volcanoes in the surroundings of Quito, Ecuador; Humboldt's ascent of Chimborazo (20,561 feet [6,265 metres]) to a height of 19,280 feet, but short of the summit, remained a world mountain-climbing record for nearly 30 years. All these achievements were carried out without the help of modern mountaineering equipment, without ropes, crampons, or oxygen supplies; hence, Humboldt and Bonpland suffered badly from mountain sickness.

But Humboldt turned his discomfort to advantage: he became the first person to ascribe mountain sickness to lack of oxygen in the rarefied air of great heights. He also studied the oceanic current off the west coast of South America that was originally named after him but is now known as the Peru Current. When the pair arrived, worn and footsore, in Quito, Humboldt, the experienced mountaineer and indefatigable collector of scientific data, had no difficulty in assuming the role of courtier and man of the world when he was received by the Viceroy and the leaders of Spanish society.In the spring of 1803, the two travellers sailed from Guayaquil to Acapulco, Mex., where they spent the last year of their expedition in a close study of this most developed and highly civilized part of the Spanish colonies. After a short stay in the United States, where Humboldt was received by President Jefferson, they sailed for France.

Humboldt and Bonpland returned with an immense amount of information. In addition to a vast collection of new plants, there were determinations of longitudes and latitudes, measurements of the components of the Earth's geomagnetic field, and daily observations of temperatures and barometric pressure, as well as statistical data on the social and economic conditions of Mexico. Whenever Humboldt had found himself in a centre of commerce in America, he had sent off reports and duplicates of his collections to his brother, Wilhelm, who had become a noted philologist, and to French scientists; unfortunately, the continental blockade then enforced by British ships prevented the greater part of his mail from reaching its destination.

READ AND TAKE NOTES BY DRAWING

JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLANDS

Spanish ISLAS JUAN FERNNDEZ, small cluster of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, situated about 400 miles (650 km) west off and administratively part of Valparaso region, Chile.

They consist of the 36-square-mile (93-square-kilometre) Isla Ms a Tierra (Nearer Land Island, also called Isla Rbinson Crusoe); the 33-square-mile ( SOLVE THIS square-kilometre) Isla Ms Afuera (Farther Out Island, also called Isla Alejandro Selkirk), 100 miles to the west; and an islet, Isla Santa Clara, southwest of Isla Ms a Tierra. The islands are volcanic peaks rising from the Juan Fernndez submarine ridge. Ms a Tierra has a summit 3,002 ft (915 m) above sea level. Ms Afuera rises to 5,415 ft. ( SOLVE THIS m) and Baha Cumberland (Cumberland Bay), on the northern side of Ms a Tierra, and Baha Padre, at the western extremity, are the only fair anchorages.

MATH THISbe careful with the , /. Systems!

rea 1 square mile / ? sq km TOTAL36 SQ M / 93 KM233 SQ M /

Linear 1 mile / ? Km TOTAL400 M / 650 KM100 M /

1 foot / ? cm / ? M.TOTAL3,002 FT / 915M5,415 FT /

AND COMPARE WITH PLACES AND FACTS YOU KNOW

COLLECT ALL THE WORDS IN GREEN +20 -ADD MORE

SCIENCE : GEOGRAPHY/GEOLOGYSEA TRAVEL

TIME LINE THIS

WHOWHEN----------------@.....................................@...........@--------........................@--------.-NOWWHAT

The islands were discovered about 1563 by Juan Fernndez, a Spanish navigator, who received a grant and lived there for some years, stocking them with goats and pigs. After his departure, the islands were visited only occasionally.In 1704, however, Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish seaman, quarrelled with his captain and demanded to be put ashore at Baha Cumberland. He remained there alone until 1709 and his adventures are commonly believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. The islands passed into Chilean possession in the early 19th century. Since then, they have been used as penal settlements on many occasions, particularly for political prisoners.Isla Santa Clara is now uninhabited. Ms a Tierra and Ms Afuera are sparsely populated, most of their inhabitants being concentrated in the village of Rbinson Crusoe on Baha Cumberland. Their principal occupation is fishing for lobsters. Pop. (1982 prelim.) 516.

PRACTICE SAYING THE YEARS AND CENTURIES