The mass of our
conceptions, rendered us more capable of perceiving the connection
between the physical and intellectual world, and thrown a more
general interest over objects which heretofore occupied only a few
scientific men, because those objects were contemplated separately,
and from a narrower point of view.
As it is probable that these volumes will obtain the attention of a
greater number of readers than the detail of my observations merely
scientific, or my researches on the population, the commerce, and
the mines of New Spain, I may be permitted here to enumerate all
the works which I have hitherto published conjointly with M.
Bonpland. When several works are interwoven in some sort with each
other, it may perhaps be interesting to the reader to know the
sources whence he may obtain more circumstantial information.
1.I.1. ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS, TRIGONOMETRICAL OPERATIONS, AND
BAROMETRICAL MEASUREMENTS MADE DURING THE COURSE OF A JOURNEY TO
THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF THE NEW CONTINENT, FROM 1799 TO 1804.
This work, to which are added historical researches on the position
of several points important to navigators, contains, first, the
original observations which I made from the twelfth degree of
southern to the forty-first degree of northern latitude; the
transits of the sun and stars over the meridian; distances of the
moon from the sun and the stars; occultations of the satellites;
eclipses of the sun and moon; transits of Mercury over the disc of
the sun; azimuths; circum-meridian altitudes of the moon, to
determine the longitude by the differences of declination;
researches on the relative intensity of the light of the austral
stars; geodesical measures, etc.