Compendium of the Natural and Civil History of Chile

X

...r to individualize the bodies belonging to the three kingdoms of nature The 18th-century scientific classification system that divided the natural world into mineral, vegetable, and animal categories., that is, the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal, I proceed by degrees, passing from the simplest things to the most complex:

I. Of common and mineral waters, of the structure of the mountains, of the quality of the terrain, of the various species of earth, of the stones and salts, of the bitumens bitumens: in early natural history, this term referred to various flammable mineral substances including asphalt, naphtha, and sulfur, and of the metals that have been discovered, and of the manner of extracting these latter from the bosom of the earth, and of purging them of heterogeneous materials;

II. Of the herbs, of the shrubs, and of the most useful trees that are grown there;

III. Of the testaceans testaceans: an archaic biological term for shelled animals, primarily mollusks, of the crustaceans, of the insects, reptiles, fish, birds, and of the singular quadrupeds that I have been able to observe:

concluding my narrative by forming a brief idea of Man, considered as an inhabitant of Chile, in whose mountains I likewise place the famous Patagonians, reputed to be giants of the human species original: "Patagones". The author refers to the long-standing European myth that the inhabitants of Patagonia were of giant stature, a belief that persisted in travel literature for centuries., reserving the discussion...