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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 195 ver ing the missions on the Piritu and the Caroni, he died on the 22d of February, 1756, at the mission of Santa Eulalia de Murueuri, a little to the south of the confluence of the Orinoco and the Caroni. The documents of which Bauza speaks are the same as those on which the great map of De la Cruz Olmedilla is based. They constitute the type of all the maps which appeared in England, France, and Germany, up to the close of the last century; and they also served for the two maps drawn in 1756 by Peter Caulin, the historian of Solano's expedition, and by an unskilful compiler, M. de Surville, Keeper of the Archives of the Secretary of State's office at Madrid. The discordance between these maps shows the little dependence which can be placed on the surveys of the expedition; besides which, Caulin's acute remarks lead us to perceive the circumstances which gave occasion to the fiction of the Lake Parime; and Surville's map, which accompanies his work, not only restores this lake under the name of the White Sea and of the Mar Dorado, but also adds another lake, from which, partly through lateral outlets, the Orinoco, the Siapa, and the Ocamo issue. I was able to satisfy myself on the spot of the fact, well known in the missions, that Don Jose Solano went indeed beyond the cataracts of Atures and Maypures, but not beyond the confluence of the Guaviare and the Orinoco, in lat. 4° 3' and long. 68° 9'; that the instruments of the Boundary Expedition were not carried either to the Isthmus of the Pimichin and the Rio Negro, or to the Cassiquiare ; and that even on the Upper Orinoco they were not taken above the mouth of the .A.tabapo. This extensive country, in which previous to my journey no exact observations had be~ attempted, had been traversed since the time of Solano only by a few soldiers sent in search of discoveries; and Don Apolinario de la Fuente (whose journals I obtained from the archives of the province of Quiros) had collected, without critical discrimination, from the lying tales told by Indium;, whatever could flatter the credulity of the governor Centurion. No member of the expedition had seen any lake, and Don Apolinario had not advanced farther than the Cerro Yumariquin and the Gehette Having now established throughout the extensive district, to which it is desired to direct the inquiring zeal of travellers, a dividing line bounding the basin of the Rio Branco, it still remai ns to |
