Description

This volume offers a rare glimpse into an 1837 expedition that sought a practical crossing of the great Andes to link the Argentine capital with Chilean ports. Commissioned by the viceroy of Buenos Aires, the author—an accomplished mathematician and astronomer—records his painstaking measurements, observations of the landscape, and the political obstacles that delayed the project for decades. The narrative situates the survey within the broader colonial ambition to unite two distant provinces under a single authority.

The work is organized as a collection of diaries, official correspondence, and detailed itineraries that trace the route from San Agustín de Talca through the foothills, across the Río Claro, and toward the Pacific coast. Along the way, the author describes rivers, marshes, and the fertile fields of Maule, while noting the presence of local indigenous groups whose raids threatened the nascent trade corridor. Though the manuscript is dense with precise distances and topographical minutiae, it paints a vivid picture of the rugged terrain and the hope of turning a remote mountain pass into a vital commercial artery.

Details

Full title

Descripcion Geografica De Un Nuevo Camino De La Gran Cordillera, Para Facilitar Las Comunicaciones De Buenos-aires Con Chile

Language

Duration

~2 hours (147K characters)

Publisher of text edition

Project Gutenberg

Credits

Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, K. Eckardt and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr)

Release date

2019-04-02

Rights

Public domain in the USA.