1856.] Practicable and Hopeful Methods. 221 respect we look upon the assertion. It is enough for us that white men do labor in similar climates, and therefore that there is no physical obstacle here. As well might the mariner say it was impossible to cross the line, that sailors would be utterly exhausted by the perpetual heat of the tropics, and could not work the ship. As well might it be urged that the slave-trade was impossible to the white man, because of the climate of Africa. The white man, as a matter of fact, does stand every climate that he has thoroughly tried, and there is nothing to prevent his laboring as well in Carolina or in Mississippi as in Southern Europe. There is nothing but the presence of the negro which prevents thousands of the immigrants from Europe settling now in the Southern States; and the place of the black man would speedily be supplied by better hands and more intelligent heads. The emigration of free labor and Northern thrift into Southern territory would revive the drooping energy of the cultivator, as well as the exhausted fertility of the soil; and would not better crops and better prices, as well for land as for its products, and his freedom from the care of his slave, compensate the proprietor for the involuntary labor now obtained? We cannot but believe that there are some yes, that there are many holders to whom these considerations are familiar, and who are deterred from expressing them only by the external pressure to which no man of energetic and resolute spirit can submit. We are pursuing a wrong method to produce what we desire. It is a course anything but Christian, anything but wise. Taunting, reproaching men with their misfortunes or misdeeds, is not the way to improve either their character or their condition. A kind, a sympathizing spirit will do more in a brief period, than all the vehement, reproaching speeches that could be made in Congress for centuries. In fact, it is evident to every one who knows even but little of human nature, that we have not hitherto taken any steps towards the professed object of our wishes. We have blown a blast with all the violence of a Northern gale, but have not tried the efficacy of the genial light and heat of a kindly spirit. Let us not give up the cause without an effort in this direction. It is our interest, as well as our duty, to retain the friendship of our associates, slave А if it be possible; at all events, to avoid giving reasonable ground of offence by our words or our acts. Have we done this? Are we blameless in this matter? If there is any reason to believe that we have not hitherto pursued the wisest course, that we have not yet devised the wisest means of accomplishing a beneficent end, let us correct our mistakes, and mend our own ways, without reproaching others for faults which are in some measure shared by ourselves. S. A. E. ART. V. GILLISS'S EXPEDITION TO THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.* THESE Volumes furnish new evidence of the zeal, energy, and good judgment which have been exhibited by our naval and military officers in the prosecution of the various scientific inquiries authorized by the wise liberality of the general government. Of the expeditions thus undertaken, not one has produced richer and more varied fruits than the astronomical expedition to South America, a portion of the results of which are classified and described in the volumes now on our table. Both in its inception and management, it reflects credit upon the distinguished officer intrusted with its superintendence, and it will add much to the reputation which he had already acquired at home and abroad. But before proceeding to lay before our readers a brief notice of Lieutenant Gilliss's labors, it may be proper to give some account of the origin of the expedition which is so entirely identified with him. *33d Congress, 1st Session. House of Representatives. Executive Document No. 121. The U. S. Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere, during the Years 1849, -50, -51, -52. LIEUT. J. M. GILLISS, Superintendent. Vol. I. Chile: its Geography, Climate, Earthquakes, Government, Social Condition, Mineral and Agricultural Resources, Commerce, &c., &c. By LIEUT. J. M. GILLISS, A. M. Vol. II. The Andes and Pampas. By LIEUT. ARCHIBALD MAC RAE; Minerals, J. LAWRENCE SMITH; Indian Remains, THOMAS EWBANK; Mammals, SPENCER F. BAIRD; Birds, JOHN CASSIN; Reptiles, Fishes, and Crustacea, CHARLES GIRARD; Shells, A. A. GOULD; Dried Plants, ASA GRAY; Living Plants and Seeds, WILLIAM D. BRACKENRIDGE; Fossil Mammals, JEFFRIES WYMAN; Fossil Shells, T. A. CONRAD. Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, Printer. 1855. 556, 300. 4to. pp. 1856.] Origin of the Expedition. 223 In the summer of 1847, Dr. C. L. Gerling, of the University of Marburg, in Germany, proposed to Lieutenant Gilliss a new method for determining the sun's parallax, "by observations of Venus during the period of its retrograde motion, and more especially when the planet is stationary." Lieutenant Gilliss was at once favorably impressed with his friend's suggestion, and having devised a plan for a series of observations to be made at Washington and at some point in South America upon nearly the same meridian, he communicated his views to several scientific gentlemen, and to the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His plan was examined and approved by both of these learned bodies, and resolutions in favor of its execution were adopted by them, and were transmitted to Congress by the Secretary of the Navy in the spring of 1848. In the following August Congress granted an appropriation of "five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary," for the purpose of making the proposed observations. Under the authority of this act Lieutenant Gilliss was appointed superintendent of the expedition; and, after procuring the necessary instruments and making other preliminary arrangements, he sailed from New York for Panama on the 16th of August, 1849. Upon reaching the Isthmus, he was detained nearly a month before he could proceed to the field of his operations; but much of this vexatious delay was offset by his singular activity and promptitude after his arrival in Chile. He landed at Valparaiso on the afternoon of the 25th of October, and the same night started for Santiago, which had been previously selected as a convenient place for the erection of the observatory. The first building was completed with so much despatch as to be ready to receive its instrument on the 5th of December; and five days later, observations were commenced on the planet Mars. "During that season the weather was exceedingly favorable for observations. Of the fifty-two pre-appointed nights remaining of the series, there were only four when no observations could be made, and two others when a slight haze obscured the very minute comparing-star in the illuminated telescope." During this period nearly fourteen hundred observations of this planet were made; and this zealous and unwearied prosecution of his labors was continued. until his return to this country in the autumn of 1852. Numerous observations of Venus and the other planets were also made; and he likewise "obtained thirty-three thousand and six hundred observations of some twentythree thousand stars, more than twenty thousand of them never previously tabulated." But Lieutenant Gilliss did not confine himself to astronomical observations. He also conducted a series of meteorological and magnetic observations; and during his protracted residence in Chile he collected a great amount of information in regard to the social, political, and industrial condition of the country. Nor are the important contributions to the physical and natural sciences which we owe to his labors less deserving of notice. From whatever point of view we may consider his labors, it will be universally admitted that he has rendered important services to science; and that his researches are alike creditable to himself and to this government. But the remarks which we design to offer upon his work will be confined to the subjects of most interest to general readers. In his first chapter our author gives a very minute and elaborate description of the geography of Chile, containing much new and curious information, and opening many interesting questions. Thus, in speaking of the rivers of Chile, he tells us : "Critical examination of their margins shows that the watercourses were once deep streams, susceptible of being navigated by vessels of the largest class. Indeed, the fact is demonstrable by geologists, that they were inlets or arms of the sea, into which melted snows and overflowing lakes in the mountains first discharged their waters. Then, as the continent rose higher and higher, winding brooks, accumulating in volume with each succeeding age, became the torrents that we now see them. From time to time sliding glaciers undermine rocks, and earthquakes dam up channels, until the heaped-up body of water bears everything before it, not unfrequently on its swollen tide transporting boulders of many tons' weight to localities far away from analogous rocks. At these epochs fields are submerged by the destroying element; the course of the river is changed; and when an affrighted populace return to the sites of former homes, it is only to weep over garden spots irrecoverably buried beneath gravel and sand deposited by the deluge. One such scene oc 1856.] Geological Changes in Chile. 225 curred on the Cachapual only a few years since, painfully prov ing how rapidly beds of shingle may be formed, and forcibly exhibiting the abrading powers of water. Even on ordinary occasions the noise of stones striking together beneath the surface, as they are borne along by the current, comes most audibly to the ear above the rushing sound of the stream over its rocky bed. How fearful, then, the spectacle during such storms as constantly occur in winter,* when this vast sloping water-shed, saturated by continuous rains, pours all that descends upon it into the narrow ravines! Every one along which I have travelled — the Copiapó, Mapocho, Maypu, Cachapual, and Maule — has its high-bounding terraces, at irregular distances, in whose vertical cliffs the running streams have left unmistakable marks, sometimes more elevated than beds of fossil vegetation forming a part of them. That some of these changes have taken place recently, there seems little reason to doubt; for Molina tells us the Maule was navigable for half its length at his day (1787) by ships of the line, and there still lived, in 1850, a native of Coquimbo, whose memory extended to the time when the sea beat against the terrace on which Serena now stands. Now the base of the terrace is twenty-five feet above the ocean, and quite a mile from it, and the Maule has not six feet of water at five miles from its mouth." - Vol. I. pp. 18, 19. In another part of this chapter Lieutenant Gilliss offers some suggestive remarks on the early colonization of the country, and the policy which prevailed in the selection of sites for the principal towns. "Even Valparaiso, the entrepôt for all the agricultural products supplied to the coasts of Bolivia and Peru,' he 66 says, remained an insignificant town, inhabited principally by agents whose employers resided at Santiago, until the first quarter of the present century had passed. As late as 1820 not even good blacksmiths were to be found at Valparaiso, and those who built houses there were obliged to resort to the capital for such ironwork as they needed; nor is it yet fifteen years since government transferred the principal custom-house from the centre of the republic to the sea-shore. From that moment a new impetus was given [to] commercial life at the port; merchants deserted the capital, property rapidly increased in value, new streets were opened, more elegant and commodious houses arose in every direction; and now, beyond dispute, Valparaiso is the greatest city bathed by the waters of the Pacific."- Vol. I. p. 28. "Five inches of rain fell at Santiago during twenty-four hours, ending July 24, 1851, and more than three inches on the day following." |