In 1862 the Spain of Isabella II elected to join in the current fashion of sending off a team of scientists on a surveying and collecting expedition to Latin America. By conveying the scientists in a squadron of three vessels the Spanish government also managed to “show the flag” in a naval demonstration. This combined operation may have saved money, but at times it seemed to hamper the scientists, limiting their areas of operations or involving them in international politics. Also the scientists frequently had to accommodate themselves to the needs or whims of the naval commanders at the expense of their mission. One hostile captain even confined them to quarters while at sea and forbade them to process their biological specimens aboard ship.

In southern South America the party finally split, one group going overland from Uruguay to Chile, while the other went with the ships, first into the Strait of Magellan and then around Cape Horn to Valparaíso. Dividing the party meant a greater opportunity to carry forward the scientific inquiry, but as matters actually worked out, few advantages were gained by the division, since the conchologist went overland and the botanist went by sea. However, the worst effects of the friction between the navy and science came when the squadron became involved in a war with Peru and other Pacific coast nations, and the members of the party were interned for seven months.

In spite of these hindrances, however, the scientific commission managed to make its surveys and to collect great quantities of data and specimens—mineral, botanical, anthropological, geological, and zoological. In the process they visited various parts of South and Central America, seeing for varying lengths of time sections of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, with briefer visits to portions of Panama, Salvador, and Nicaragua. Four out of the original eight in the party brought their South American venture to a climax by making their way through the Ecuadorian-Peruvian montaña to the Amazon, and then down that river to its mouth. In almost four years of work, the scientists collected and sent back to Spain some 82,465 items to enrich Spanish science. Thus, in spite of the difficulties encountered, they had promoted both science and national glory.

While the members of the commission succeeded in their venture, Robert R. Miller has not been so fortunate in his account of their mission. The work is apparently the product of assiduous study in many archives and libraries, but to this reader it seems little more than a rather shallow account of travels around Latin America by a haphazard group of men. Miller has apparently made little use of the plentiful scientific literature in such subjects as anthropology, for example, so that it is almost impossible to judge the merits of the expedition’s field experience, as well as the worth, both immediate and ultimate, of the data collected. Since the travels of the scientists have been so well covered, perhaps we now need a series of estimates by men well-versed in the particular specialities involved, assessing the collections and their impact upon science, both in Spain and elsewhere.