Introduction

Recent research by Emma Spary has emphasized the process to which “specimens of the natural world”—on which the practice of natural history depends—are subject. These specimens are carried from distant lands to institutions that produce Natural History. Furthermore, they are preserved during their journey in order to be transmuted into “immutable mobiles,” that is, objects that become inscriptions enabling scientists to leave their laboratories and then return with “something” (Latour 1986). As the production of scientific knowledge leans upon communication networks, Natural History is therefore considered a “science of networks” (Spary 2000, 97).

In this paper we would like to contribute to the study of Natural History networks by focusing on the role played by spokesmen. To this end we shall discuss as a case study the Comisión del Pacífico expedition that was put together by the Spanish government in 1862. According to Michel Callon, the laboratory—though certainly a microcosm—can ultimately mobilize a macrocosm based on the activity of a number of spokesmen. In this type of “processionary science” spokesmen circulate in and out of the laboratory in a constant flow (Callon 1988, 23, n. 2). The longer, safer, and more reliable the chain of representatives, the more influence a laboratory can exert all over the world.

The Comisión Científica del Pacífico is considered the most important overseas scientific expedition during the reign of Queen Isabel II.¹

The expedition, composed of three zoologists, a geologist, a botanist, an anthropologist, a taxidermist, and a photographer and draftsman, traveled with a Naval squadron that left Cádiz in 1862. Although the Commission ran into trouble right from the start and only four of the expeditionary members succeeded in crossing the American continent in 1865, they managed to collect an admirably large assortment of objects that ranged from specimens of the natural world to mummies and photographs.

Although this scientific project recreated the colonial program developed by the Parisian Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, the collection assembled by the expeditionary group had a life of its own and inspired, as it still does, works on biology, anthropology, and history by a number of savants both in Spain and abroad. The collection, in fact, has been revived after a number of serendipitous discoveries, particularly of photographs and drawings in a number of archives.

We shall consider the activities of the Comisión Científica del Pacífico as an expression of “processionary science” and focus on three major aspects. First, we underline the fundamental contribution of the spokesmen who were active in the networks that were unfolded by the members of this scientific expedition while at the “American laboratory.” Secondly, we attempt to demonstrate that the study of these documentary, scientific, and iconographic collections has a discontinuous character, which corroborates a structural feature of Spanish science: its guadianización (López-Ocón 2003). With this neologism, which refers to a Spanish river—the Guadiana—that flows intermittently, López Piñero intended to emphasize the discontinuous efforts of Spanish scientists,²

which may have given rise to a resulting semi-peripheral status of Spanish science (Polanco 1990; López-Ocón 1995). Finally, we shall discuss how the website www.pacifico.csic.es—devoted to the expedition's documentary and scientific collections—is “keeping alive” the networks generated by this nineteenth-century Spanish scientific enterprise by extending the circulation of inscriptions over space and time.

The Scientific Commission and its Two-way Trajectory

As a consequence of Alexander von Humboldt's prestige, the American continent became a favorite destination for European naturalists in the 1850s (López-Ocón 1999). In a few years several collective enterprises for the exploration and study of the natural world and culture of America were organized.

Three such enterprises—organized in Vienna, Madrid, and Paris—are worth mentioning. Von Humboldt (Beck 1959–1961) issued instructions and gave advice to some explorers aboard the Austro-Hungarian frigate Novara, which was to undertake a circumnavigation voyage from 1857 to 1859 under the command of Commodore B. von Wüllerstorf-Urbair (Treffer 1973).³

In 1864 the government of the French Second Empire organized the Commission Scientifique du Mexique. This scientific expedition took place right after the invasion of Mexico by French, Spanish, and British combined forces. By the time this scientific commission was organized the Spanish and British governments had already withdrawn their troops from this imperial venture that had been set up as a way to persuade Mexico to pay its foreign debt (López-Ocón 1995; Soberanis 1998). During the period between these two military ventures the Spanish government decided to send a “squadron” composed of two warships—Triunfo and Resolución—to the Pacific Ocean. As the Novara had done previously, this squadron was supposed to sail around the world via South America and the Philippines. The Comisión Científica del Pacífico, with three zoologists, a geologist, a botanist, an anthropologist, a taxidermist, and a photographer, was organized three years later, and then added to this already-planned military expedition.

Thus, politics and science joined in a venture organized in the midst of a pan-Hispanic feeling that pervaded the élite during the late reign of Queen Isabel II (Van Aken 1959; López-Ocón 1987, 60–88). The beginnings of Spanish capitalism resulted in a golden period (Tortella 1995), and a desire to reclaim an international-power status emerged (Durán de la Rúa 1979; Martínez Gallego 2001). As a result of the American Civil War the Spanish government tried to enforce a new policy against North American expansionism in Latin America. The circumnavigation voyage of the frigates Triunfo and Resolución was planned as a result of this strategy. Their objective was to establish a military base on the South American Pacific coast, in an attempt to articulate Spain's fragmentary colonial system in America, Asia, and Oceania. In fact, commissioners were seemingly given instructions to look for a favorable place to set up this military base in the Pacific, an area that had gained economic and strategic importance after California's Gold Rush and the discovery of gold in Australia back in 1848.⁴

Furthermore, it was believed that Spain's incipient scientific and technological system—still recovering from a crisis—could be used by this colonialist policy. Among other reasons, there were scientists—including some members of the Commission—who had already gained experience in colonial science. In addition, the project was also related to the program of the French Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, an important aspect that we shall discuss later.

As a matter of fact, three members of the Commission had been selected for their colonial experience (see fig. 1). Patricio María Paz y Membiela (1808–1874) was a former Navy officer and resident of Cuba. His interest in natural science had been awakened by his acquaintances the naturalist Felipe Poey and shell expert Nicolás Gutierrez.⁵

The physician Manuel Almagro (1834–1895), in charge of the anthropological and ethnographic aspects of the expedition, was from Cuba, still a Spanish colony at that time. Fernando Amor (1820–1863), vice-president of the expedition and commissioner in charge of geological and entomological research, was particularly familiar with colonial science. This experienced naturalist—already a member of the entomological society of France—was closely linked to a number of utilitarian and scientific projects of the period. In 1855 the government of the province of Córdoba elected him as their official representative at the Paris Universal Exposition. Fernando Amor's objectives were to make the region's agricultural produce known at the Exposition, and to learn about advances in modern agriculture that could be deemed appropriate for the Andalusian countryside (Amor 1856). The trip of this provincial scientist to the “heart” of Europe facilitated the foundation of an elementary agricultural school in Córdoba. Fernando Amor was even elected school principal in 1858. His main contribution to the school program focused on giving a scientific and rational basis to the study of agriculture by creating a “model farm” (Puig-Samper 1988, 44–45). Furthermore, in the summer of 1859 Amor participated in a three-week exploration trip to northern Morocco (Amor 1859). As noted by a certain historian (Barras de Aragón 1949, 26), his exploratory work was possibly related to the 1860 Spanish-Moroccan war.

One way or another these naturalists were part of a European trend that considered science to be closely linked to the colonial expansion of a new “conquering bourgeoisie.” The most relevant colonial powers supported important research programs to fulfill “the dream of the eighteenth century”—to bring exotic specimens to European laboratories to gain knowledge and as a result, enable them to domesticate and conquer their natural world (Mackenzie 1990). Such were the objectives of the French zoological society devoted to acclimatizing.

The founding of the Société Zoologique d'Acclimatation—which would become an imperial enterprise with the support of Napoleon III—in 1854 by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1805–1861) eloquently describes the role of science in European colonial expansion. Although acclimatization—based on the theory of limited variability of types—was conceived as an ancillary science in French colonial policy, particularly in Algeria (Osborne 1994, idem 2000), this new science was transnational in character from the outset.⁶

According to some recent work by Santiago Aragón (Aragón 2002), there was significant Spanish participation in this Society during the presidency of I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1854–1861). Considering that the Comisión Científica del Pacífico was organized immediately after that period, this scientific enterprise may well be considered a spokesman of the network unfolded by the Société Zoologique d'Acclimatation. Furthermore, it may also be regarded as an element of the processionary science established by I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. In fact, Mariano de la Paz Graells (1809–1898)—the powerful Director of Madrid's Museo de Ciencias Naturales from 1851 to 1867, sponsor of the Comisión Científica del Pacífico, and one of the Society's first three international delegates—was one of its most active correspondents. The correspondence between Graells, I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and other members shows that the Spanish scientist actively participated in the Society's activities. Even though he was not a significant naturalist, he believed in the social usefulness of scientific practice, as did many of his colleagues. Furthermore, he believed that science should contribute to the glory of the nation-state. As a nationalist, Graells—like many other members of his generation (López-Ocón 1992, idem 2000)—had a particular interest in the recovery of scientific tradition and thus he advocated that Spaniards play a role in the modern practice of acclimatization (Graells 1855). He succeeded in convincing I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who consequently became a spokesman for Graells' theories within the Société (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1861, 466–468).

The acclimatization program underlying the Commission's organization may be considered an indicator of Graells' interest in making the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales another center within the “acclimatization-science” network unfolded by I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire from the Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation.

Graells was aware of the sponsorship role played by powers. In fact, he became popular in 1848 due to the discovery of Graellsia isabellae, a butterfly from Sierra de Gredos that he named after Queen Isabel II (Viejo Montesinos 1992). In 1857 he acted as a delegate of the Society in Madrid to reward Queen Isabel II for her support of the acclimatization project in both the metropolis and its colonies. In 1859 he succeeded in giving another important decoration of the Société to the Prince Consort for his introduction of Peruvian llamas and alpacas in Spain (Aragón 2002, 50–51). His role as a court scientist facilitated the Royal sponsorship of a domestication and acclimatization park at Madrid's Jardín Botánico. This short-lived park—active until 1871—was closely linked to the vicissitudes of the Comisión Científica del Pacífico.

Instructions issued to travelers—rather improvised according to their editor—insisted on the mission of these agents at a distance. According to these instructions the explorers had to carefully and meticulously collect both botanic and animal specimens that could contribute to the development of acclimatization. Thus, one of the objectives of the expedition's botanist was: “To take any chance to send seeds, as well as tubers, bulbs, and roots of living plants conveniently, so that they arrive in good condition and may be used in experiments in order to achieve their cultivation among us, understanding that preference must be given to useful plants, but including ornamental species as well as plants of strictly scientific interest.”⁷

The ambiguity of this request is in contrast with the more specific and detailed instructions issued to zoologists. For example, such instructions listed specimens of mammals suitable for the fur trade. In the case of the Canadian beaver (Castor canadensis) these instructions commented: “[it is] an animal that would become extinct should civilization not hurry to tame it and multiply it.” As for birds, the instructions insisted on giving priority to obtain and then send to the network center—the acclimatization garden at Madrid's Jardín Botánico—animals from distant places such as the ostrich from Senegal (Struthio camelus), rhea from Buenos Aires (Rhea americana), and black swan (Cygnus atratus) from New Holland (Australia). They also recommended the collection of “living specimens of secretary (Sagittarius serpentarius), a bird of prey used for the annihilation of poisonous snakes.” Even considering all classes of the invertebrate group interesting—the catalog of recommendations stated—these travelers had to spare no effort to send “eggs and cocoons of silkworms (Bombyx mori), cochineal insects, and very specially honey bees from different countries. Bee hives and larvae have to be sent well protected, so swarms of queen bees and drones can reproduce.” According to these recommendations the introduction of certain green-honey bees from Madagascar in Europe was deemed convenient.

In order to achieve this rather fanciful acclimatization program—particularly considering that the Commission would not travel to the places where most of these animals had their haunt—right-hand men of the expedition's scientific promoters were chosen: the above-mentioned Mariano Paz Graells and Laureano Pérez Arcas (1824–1894).⁸

The relationship between these two men, who competed with each other in the field of Zoology, was troublesome.⁹ Francisco de Paula Martínez y Sáez (1835–1908) and Marcos Jiménez de la Espada (1831–1898), favorite disciples of Pérez Arcas and Graells, respectively, were selected as first and second naturalists of the Commission. Martínez was elected the Commission's secretary and put in charge of its collections of mammals, aquatic reptiles, fish, crustaceans, annelids, mollusks, and zoophytes. Meanwhile, Jiménez de la Espada was given responsibility for the collection of birds, mammals, and terrestrial reptiles. Both scientists had been staff assistants at Madrid's Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. Furthermore, Espada had been Graells' right-hand man, and responsible for animal care at the acclimatization zoological park located at the Jardín Botánico since 1859.

It seems that a photographer and draftsman, Rafael Castro y Ordóñez (1830?-1865) was close to Graells. So was the botanist, Juan Isern (1825–1866) who already had a reputation as a hard-working botanist from Catalonia when he was assigned to the Commission. His expertise had drawn the attention of several European savants such as Willkomm, to whom he sent plants from Catalonia in exchange for German specimens. He received the support of Graells from 1851 when he settled in Madrid. Since then he had worked as a collector for the city's Jardín Botánico. Another person close to Graells was the physician Bartolomé Puig y Galup (1826-?), who had worked as assistant taxidermist at Barcelona's Gabinete de Historia Natural. Graells also had close connections with Barcelona's scientific circles due to his earlier position as Head of the Zoology and Taxidermy Department of the city's Academia de Ciencias Naturales between 1835 and 1837.

In the spring of 1862 the Commission organizers decided to include a photographer in the expeditionary group, indicating the élite's interest in innovative technological practice. The eighth Commission member, Rafael Castro y Ordóñez, was a painter. Whether he had any knowledge of photography when he was elected is still unknown. However, he was given instructions on “views” (Puig-Samper 1988, 24) by one of the most important operators of the time: the British photographer Charles Clifford (1819–1863). It is important to note that Clifford's propaganda pictures of public works had been essential in constructing a “soft” image of the reign of Queen Isabel II in the 1850s (Fontanella 1999). And photography was, too, very popular in Madrid.¹⁰

The Commission's organizers believed that by including a photographer in the expedition they would be able to see through a “magic eye,” for they regarded photographs as capable of “revealing all the mysteries of the world,” “opening up … landscapes,” and translating “unknown spaces into familiar scenes, opening up distant territory to imperial eyes” (Ryan 1997, 72). The incorporation of this technological instrument also added prestige to the expedition (Badía, Pérez-Montes, and López-Ocón 2000). Similarly to science and technology, photography became a propaganda medium of the new Spanish power as well as an agent for aggressiveness due to the camera's capacity to “facilitate strategic knowledge on the geography of a country which may potentially become a battlefield” (Ryan 1997, 79).

The scientists who organized the expedition knew about the capacity of this new technique to explore nature and to move immutable mobiles through scientific networks. Graells and I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire exchanged photographs with their correspondence. In 1858, I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire asked for a drawing or photograph of a specimen of Andean Camelidae,¹¹

introduced in Spain by the Prince Consort, and hairs from animals of different gender and age. Graells sent three photographs—of a male and two females (one of them breeding)—with samples of woolen-hairs in order to have “the good quality of these individuals from our Peruvian flock” tested by the Société.¹²

Because photographs were capable of producing high-quality immutable mobiles, the expeditionary draftsman was also equipped with a camera. The photographer had to assist his fellow travelers and—according to section 15 of the Commission's regulations—take views of mountains and the vegetation. Furthermore, he had to take portraits of individuals of all races, and pictures of objects that could lose their original color or shape when preserved; as a result, the photographer was also somewhat involved in specimen preservation.¹³

Castro used modern photographic processes and carried with him sophisticated equipment that had been acquired in Paris and London (Puig-Samper 1988, 446–448). During his voyage to America the photographer took more than five hundred wet-collodion plates that were printed on albumen paper (Molina, Pérez-Montes, and López-Ocón 2000). At that time wet collodion and albumen, in use since early in the 1850s, were replacing other photographic processes such as calotypy. Furthermore, the photographer's equipment included a modern Voigtländer lens.

Voitgländer-Petzval brilliant lenses were already known for their contribution to photography's first technological revolution in the 1840s. Interestingly, this equipment was partially purchased by Rafael Fernández de Moratín in Paris. As many Spanish advertisements of the period prove, modern photographic technology, used as part of the advertising strategy launched by many local photographers, was usually acquired in the French city (González 2002, 108, 112). Thus, the acquisition of such material abroad, although conceived as playing a role in a policy of prestige, ultimately reveals Spanish dependence on foreign technology.

Furthermore, Castro acted as a journalist for El Museo Universal, the most significant illustrated periodical in Spain at the time (González Pizarro 1989). Besides the collaboration of several photographers with this magazine, it must be noted that Graells had close connections with it, as advertisements of his acclimatization garden prove.¹⁴

Thus, Castro became a travel writer, and his photographs became immutable mobiles that rapidly spread among the cosmopolitan middle class. By reading his more than thirty letters from America, and by looking at his pictures—engravings of his photographs, photographs collected by him, and his own drawings (Páez Ríos 1952)—the general public followed the Commission's adventures during the first two stages of its voyage.

This trip may be divided into three parts. The first stage of the Commission's voyage spans from August 10, 1862, the day on which the expeditionary group set sail from Cádiz, to May 1863, when the explorers met in Valparaíso after reaching the Pacific through several routes. Some members crossed the Pampas and the Andes whereas the rest of the group sailed round Cape Horn and through the Strait of Magellan.

In July 1863, during the second part of its voyage, the Commission split up for various reasons. Trouble arose between the explorers and naval officers aboard the frigate Triunfo, which led to Paz's resignation from his post as director of the Commission. Vice-president Fernando Amor, who had become severely ill during his research work in the mines of northern Chile, died in California on October 21, 1863. Furthermore, conflicts between Peru, Chile, and Spain worsened when the Spanish squadron took over the Chincha Islands, well known for their rich guano deposits, on April 14, 1864. As a result, the Commission's naturalists were ordered to return immediately to Spain. Puig decided to remain in Chile, and Castro complied and returned to Spain via New York after a short visit to these islands, where he took some photographs. However, Martínez, Espada, Isern, and Almagro rebelled against the Navy and sought support from the government to set up their own expedition. Once permission was granted, they organized their “grand voyage” from Guayaquil to the Brazilian coast along the 2^nd parallel.

During the last year of the trip—from autumn 1864 to October 25, 1865—they crossed the American continent—from the Pacific to Brazil's Atlantic coast—with great difficulty. This was the route previously covered by Francisco de Orellana, the first European explorer across the Amazon, whom they wished to emulate. In September 1865 they came across an American scientific expedition led by the Swiss Louis Agassiz—already working in Harvard—that was undertaking extensive research work in the Amazon. Almagro, as we may read in his memoirs, felt humiliated: “[We were] thoroughly defeated, without clothes or shoes, and with long beards… [Including] the severe jaundice of poor Isern, in all…[we] definitely looked like a bunch of beggars rather than members of a Commission sent by a European government” (Almagro [1866] 1984, 140–141). Agassiz and his wife on board the Brazilian ship Icamiaba mentioned them in their book on their experiences in this South American country. According to their writings, the Spaniards had just accomplished an adventurous journey, having descended the Napo River on a raft that reminded them of Noah's Ark, due to the huge collection of living animals that it carried. The Agassizs also commented that, even though the explorers had lost almost all of their clothing by shipwreck, they had fortunately been able to save their notes and collections (Agassiz and Cabot Agassiz 1895, 208).

Although the Commission was created in 1862 to spread the idea of a “renaissance”—particularly of Spanish natural science—and to participate in the extensive acclimatization program promoted by the Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, three years later it had been reduced to four defeated naturalists returning to Spain in awful condition. In fact, the botanist Isern died immediately after his arrival in Madrid. Nevertheless, their journey was not in vain as they succeeded in achieving a huge collection of specimens from the American culture and natural world.

Moreover, the significant contribution of a group of correspondents mobilized by the network created by the Spaniards in America deserves recognition. There were correspondents of all kinds: natives working for European museums, individuals involved in the institutionalization of natural science in Latin America, etc. Some of these contributors were awarded a medal by the Spanish government (Puig-Samper 1988, 337). However, other correspondents were only rescued from oblivion when some expedition members credited their local contribution to the process of knowledge acquisition. Espada, for example, did not hesitate to mention contributions made by his diverse cooperators, for he mentioned the German—naturalized Chilean—naturalist R. A. Philippi, who donated an important herbarium to the Commission (Blanco and Puig-Samper 1995), and also young Fermín, a native American boy who captured a specimen of Thyroptera tricolor—a bat of alleged scientific value that we shall comment on later.

They showed certain friendliness toward American achievements, and discovered the importance of scientific traditions existing in the periphery. In this, they followed a trend already present among a number of European naturalists who shed their ethnocentric prejudices. Alexander von Humboldt and the Spanish zoologist Félix de Azara—whose works were included in the naturalists' baggage—had valued the experience accumulated by Latin Americans during their process of self-identification. Therefore, the botanist was asked to find out about the peculiarities of plants, their use, and the names given to them by natives in the second section of the instructions (Puig-Samper 1988, 421). The activities undertaken at the American laboratory changed the perception that some of these naturalists had of the world. This is particularly true of Marcos Jiménez de la Espada, as will be discussed later.

Despite their difficulties, the naturalists sent more than eighty thousand specimens to Madrid, where a reception commission had been already set up to act as a center for this network. From this center objects were retrieved, ordered, and then prepared for preservation at the city's Museo de Ciencias Naturales (ibid., 333–337). Some of these shipments were easier to transport than others. The first important shipment was sent from Rio de Janeiro in November 1862, and arrived without trouble in Madrid.¹⁵

However, another shipment sent from Valparaíso in October 1864 encountered great difficulty due to the instability of the network unfolded by these naturalists, who were almost isolated at that time due to political differences between Spain and the American republics of the Pacific. Jiménez de la Espada decided to send 86 mammals and birds. These animals were shipped on board the French frigate Persévérance on its way to Le Havre. Many of them died during the trip. Although this shipment was considered a “zoological tragedy” (Miller 1968, 112–113), Graells stressed the importance of such exotic animals, particularly the Patagonian hare (Dolichotis patagonum), to his colleagues (Graells 1865, 15–18). As a result of Graells' publicity campaign, the Société awarded Espada a first-class medal of the Mammal Division for his shipment of various species of mammals to Europe in its yearly session, held in Paris at the Hôtel de la Ville in 1866. Although the Spanish press echoed the award in a rather vindictive manner,¹⁶ only ten animals—four guanacos, two Patagonian hares, one ram, two sheep from Ligua, and one coypu (Myocastor coypus)—were still alive after a few months (Almagro [1866] 1984, 171).

These collections not only moved through European networks but also within American society, a fact that proves the impact of the work undertaken by these Spaniards in the periphery. So it happened with some of the photographs taken by Castro. Photographs—which, according to Ch. Pierce, have an “indexical” nature, linking the sign with its referent by physical nearness (Dubois 1994, 42)—were considered “the true retina of the scientist,”¹⁷

or, in other words, almost a specimen. Thus, Americans who were sensitive to the truthfulness of photography—to the capacity of photographs to see further than human eyes, to “receive the truth of nature” as “they document the essence of nature that underlies within the human being” (Rudisill 1971)—circulated Castro's photographs. In this way some photographs taken by Castro in California on October 1863 were included as lithographs—produced by using an inter-negative by the photographer George H. Johnson—by Edward Vischer in some of his texts.¹⁸ In his book Sequoia Gigantea, Calaveras Mammoth Tree Grove, Vischer published three of these photographs, including a view of “The Guardsmen at the entrance of Mammoth Grove,” which according to the photo-historian Peter Palmquist are “specimen” aspects of the big trees (see fig. 2). The second Castro image in Vischer's book shows the butt-end of the original big tree. The third, and final, redwood view shows “the trunk and debris of the original big tree, as it is now visible [in 1863] after removal of the temporary cover by which it was housed, while used as a bowling alley for the pastime of visitors” (Vischer 1864, preface; quoted in Palmquist 1982, 15). A fourth image—among the thirty-two Californian views kept at CSIC archives (Molina, Pérez-Montes, and López-Ocón, 2000, and www.pacifico.csic.es)—taken by Castro in California was also reproduced by Vischer with the title “Mining Scene Near Murphy,” in his book Pictorial California, published in San Francisco in 1870. Whether Castro ever knew about the circulation of his photographs in California is unknown, since he committed suicide by the end of 1865. His reasons for taking his life in such a fatal way are still unknown, but do confirm the romantic pathos and tragic aura in which the Commission was always involved.

Early in 1866, when all the surviving explorers were back in Madrid, the Commission's political and scientific patrons wished to exhibit the results. The “Golden Fleece” of these “modern Argonauts” was an impressive display of the biological diversity of America's nature, and the plurality of its culture. Thus, they organized a great exhibition of the objects collected by Commission members along their voyage at the Jardín Botánico (Barreiro 1926, 406–411; Miller 1968, 169–171; Puig-Samper 1988, 339–345). However, little did the organizers, curators, and visitors of the exhibition know that these collections would have a difficult circulation through the scientific network in the next 150 years, as we shall discuss in the following pages.

Ups and Downs in the Scientific Study of a Collection of American Objects

The exhibition was a success. Several media reported on the Commission's work. José Gaspar, editor-in-chief of El Museo Universal, obsessed with his role as educator and mediator between scientists and society, requested authorization to have a staff draftsman copy the objects on display at the exhibit.¹⁹

As a result, several engravings of these objects were published in the magazine and were thus transformed into a “portable museum.”

These engravings document the affluence of visitors. Although these visitants are unknown to us, we know that the Basque José María Murga—a Bilbao proprietor who had become a member of the Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation—visited the display with Espada, who showed him an interesting specimen of the bat Thyroptera tricolor. A woman, shocked by the Peruvian, Bolivian, and Chilean pre-Columbian mummies on display, wrote a romantic poem that was published in a family-oriented magazine.²⁰

Despite these favorable conditions this venture marks the end of an era. Five hundred visitors purchased the exhibition catalog, written by the anthropologist Almagro. Thus, the exhibition's success suggests the presence of favorable conditions for the systematic study of these collections. However, it may be considered the last enterprise of science of that time. Although a commission for the study of the collection was created at the time the exhibition was organized, it was ill fated. Politicians were tightfisted and asked Martínez, Espada, and Almagro to complete an ambitious introductory work about new genera and species from the collection in two years! During that period of time a political crisis led to the fall of Queen Isabel II. Spanish science followed a similar pattern. As a result of Graells' loss of power in 1867, his research—based on the work undertaken by the Comisión Científica del Pacífico—and the whole acclimatization program shrank.

Nevertheless the situation improved, at least for a while. In 1868 a coalition of liberal parties came to power. The new government, interested in the promotion of science (López-Ocón 1997), reactivated the Commission's activities. Martínez and González Hidalgo—the most prominent malachologist in Spain at that time, and a regular contributor to the prestigious Journal de Conchyliologie—studied the collection of mollusks, which included 38,755 specimens of 816 species. Several species were described in three research works published during a ten-year period. Martínez focused on aquatic bivalvia. Meanwhile, González Hidalgo published two books on terrestrial and sea gastropoda. The first book, illustrated with eighty-nine figures sketched by the Becquet brothers of Paris, came out in 1872 (see fig. 3) (González Hidalgo and Martínez y Sáez, 1869–79). According to the most recent research work done on malachology, the Commission's explorers collected 324 species of sea gastropoda, and 241 of terrestrial gastropoda. González Hidalgo described 19 new species (Calvo 1994, 283–285).

There were other contributions to the knowledge of that rich and varied collection. When the former Commission president—Paz—returned to Madrid he sent freshwater bivalvia to Isaac Lea, a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The American scientist immediately described fourteen new species but did not indicate their range.²¹

Fifty years later the German scientist Friedrich Haas traveled to Madrid in order to study the collection brought home by the Commission, and thus complete the investigation on freshwater bivalvia that had been initiated by Lea. He discussed the distribution of these specimens, and argued that species from the Pacific Ocean did not exist in the Atlantic. Furthermore, Haas claimed that the Río de la Plata Basin, as well as the Amazon and other river systems to the north, had only a few species in common (Haas 1916, 41, 61).

The most outstanding scientific work related to this expedition to the Pacific was Espada's. He was the only member of the group who maintained a life-long interest in studying the culture and natural world that he had encountered during his American journey.

At first he focused his research work on the study of those mammals that he had observed and collected during his trip along the biologically rich and varied Amazon area. He traveled to Paris where he contacted colleagues such as Milne-Edwards, both senior and junior, Dumeril, J. Verreaux, Gervais, and Braconnier. Thus, he compared specimens in their collections with the most interesting animals from South America that were kept at Madrid's Gabinete de Historia Natural. Upon his return he used his expertise in comparative anatomy and physiology to describe new species of apes, emphasizing the mechanisms of adaptability to arboreal life developed by some mammals. He studied the Thyroptera tricolor Spix, characterized by its suckers (see figs. 4 and 5). A specimen of this bat had been given to him by a young native-American in Ecuador on May 25, 1865. As Espada wrote in one of his research papers, “a mammal with suckers was… the most extraordinary discovery of our voyage, and a rare finding regarding the anatomy of those vertebrates” (Jiménez de la Espada 1870b, in López-Ocón and Pérez-Montes 2000, 213). This research paper demonstrates an interest in the distribution as well as the behavior of the newly observed species. Once published it was sent to Murga, the above-mentioned visitor to the exhibition at Jardín Botánico, to whom Espada had shown the bat in 1866. Murga replied: “The description of the bat with suckers is extremely strange, something that may be understood by savants and ordinary people all the same.”²²

Obsessed with the idea of priority, and willing to convince his colleagues of the importance of his scientific findings, Espada focused on the study of a collection of 786 amphibians that he had collected along the trip. He made contact with a network of European and American herpetologists. In his five successive publications, mostly of taxonomic character, Espada discussed the results of his research and, willing to be original, he published his first paper in Latin in the periodical magazine of Lisbon's Academy of Science (Jiménez de la Espada 1870a). The editor of this publication was the Portuguese zoologist José Vicente Barboza du Bocage. This professional connection allowed Espada to contact other European and American colleagues such as Günther, from the British Museum; G. Elliot, from the Zoological Society of London; and E. Cope, secretary of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Barboza du Bocage, who introduced him to E. Cope, acted as the nodal point of a network that interested Espada.²³

Espada's herpetological studies culminated in 1875 with his most important work: a 208-page volume illustrated with figures drawn by Díaz Carreño, a notable artist whom Espada had talked into devoting himself to scientific drawing. The book contains a new description of 18 genera and 24 species of previously known amphibians from South America. It also includes the description of new specimens: 2 genera, 12 species, and 3 sub-species, as well as interesting remarks on their biology (see fig. 6). This research work was considered so relevant by herpetologists of neotropical fauna that the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles—encouraged by the well-known herpetologist Jay M. Savage—issued a reprint edition in cooperation with the Spanish government in 1978 (Savage 1978; De la Riva 2000).

Espada did not devote himself exclusively to taxonomic studies. In 1872 he published a paper on the reproduction of the frog Rhinoderma darwinii in a periodical issued by Sociedad Española de Historia Natural (Jiménez de la Espada 1872, in López-Ocón and Pérez-Montes 2000, 217–224). He was a founding member of this Society and played an important role during its early years. Rhinoderma darwinii belongs to the family Rhinodermatidae, which includes only two species within the restricted range of Chilean and Argentinean temperate forests. Espada made an important discovery, and understood its importance in the field of evolutionary biology immediately (De la Riva 2000, 79). The French—naturalized Chilean—biologist Claude Gay had argued that Darwin's frog was viviparous because he had found well-developed tadpoles inside some specimens that, of course, he had identified as females (Gay 1848). However, Espada observed that males transported larvae in their vocal pouch. Since he had studied dead specimens, he underlined the importance of future research with living animals in order to fully understand the mechanism of such an odd reproduction pattern, still considered most interesting among the evolutionary tendencies of Anura.

Espada found an international audience for his research. Although his monograph was written in Spanish, it stirred up the curiosity of his European colleagues. In 1877 J. W. Spengel became his spokesman by translating into German an excerpt of his work for the readers of Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Zoologie (Spengel 1877), thus introducing his contribution to the field of zoology on an international basis.

Nevertheless, in spite of his success as a zoologist, Espada became a historian. He reached maturity as a man of science, and was soon acknowledged by colleagues such as the aforementioned Spengel, and the Spanish zoology leader Pérez Arcas (Pérez Arcas, 1876). However, he made a decision to change the objective of his research, becoming an expert on American history and culture. This re-orientation toward the past resulted from his desire to enrich his investigations with previous knowledge contained in texts. Thus, he overcame his institutional limitations as a zoologist, and contributed successfully to the recuperation of a History of Natural Science in Colonial Latin America. His romantic nationalism led him to emphasize the continuity between the earliest cronistas de Indias—like Fernández de Oviedo—and the enlightened scientific-explorers of America, such as the Malaspina Expedition members. By doing so he tried to fight the “guadianizing” tendency that characterizes Spanish science, and gave value to a scientific tradition of natural studies in Spanish America of which he considered himself a part.

Furthermore, rescuing previous texts from oblivion was common practice among many nineteenth-century naturalists. Fan Fa-ti has recently demonstrated that members of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society used Chinese texts (Fan 2000). Similarly, there were naturalists—most of them humboldtian scientists like Espada—who used texts, philological data, and historical documents in their research. This practice led Espada to the study of Americanism. He participated actively in several international conferences—Brussels 1879, Madrid 1881, Torino 1886, Berlin 1888, and Paris 1890—by which this field was being defined (López-Ocón 2002). Furthermore, he developed a singular historiography devoted to the knowledge of the natural world and the ancient cultures of America. Some of Espada's work—published over 25 years—was read decades later, and inspired classic works such as John Murra's historiography on the socioeconomic structure of the Inca Empire (Murra 1980). Furthermore, Espada's work even contributed to the creation of the field of Andean ethno-history.²⁴

In the 1890s, when Espada was completing his work, specimens collected by the anthropologist Manuel Almagro were studied by Luis de Hoyos y Sainz. This scientist—whose research work was published for almost twenty years (Hoyos y Sainz 1910, 1911a, 1911b, 1913, 1923–1924)—defined a typology of cranial deformities, and provided anthropometric data on the inhabitants of the Andean region (Puig-Samper 1988, 367).

Nevertheless, Espada's singular work—a hybrid of natural science and history—acted as a spokesman for the processionary science unfolded by the Comisión del Pacífico expedition in the twentieth century. Later Espada succeeded in passing on his knowledge of the expedition's collection of mammals to his disciple Ángel Cabrera Latorre (1879–1960). From 1900 to 1913, an active period at the Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Cabrera Latorre undertook a series of research that resulted in the discovery of 8 new species and 5 sub-species (Cabrera Latorre 1900, 1901a, 1901b, 1901c, 1904, 1907, 1913, 1917). His research concerning the Comisión del Pacífico collection helped him become familiar with South American fauna, an aspect of the field that would eventually become his area of expertise when he settled in Argentina as a staff member of Museo de la Plata (García Perea and Gisbert 1998).²⁵

In the 1920s Father Barreiro's body of work attracted new interest in the Commission. Barreiro edited fragments of Espada's diary that had been kept by his descendants (Barreiro 1928) and collected Isern's notes on the botanic aspects of the expedition. He also supported the 1929 Exposición Retrospectiva de Historia Natural, which included objects collected by Spanish expeditions in America and Oceania. Captain Iglesias' project proves the extent of interest that this exhibition aroused. Francisco Iglesias, an Air Force hero, convinced the government of the Second Spanish Republic to organize a new scientific expedition to the upper Amazon. This project was intended to recall the Comisión del Pacífico exploration (Iglesias 1931; López Gómez 2002) and it encouraged the study of other collections. A Catalan botanist Josep Cuatrecasas (1903–1996) studied Isern's herbarium during a stay in Berlin's Botanischer Garten. During his investigation he received help from the German professors Pilger, Diels, and Mattfeld (Cuatrecasas 1935).

However, political difficulties interrupted all studies concerning the collection. On July 1936 General Franco revolted and a bloody civil war broke out. Cuatrecasas was one of those scientists who went into exile. First, he went to Colombia and then to the United States, where he developed an important research program devoted to tropical flora at the Smithsonian Institution.²⁶

In contrast, the Commission's collection once again fell into oblivion during Franco's dictatorship.

Finally, two discoveries made in the 1980s and 1990s again attracted interest in the Comisión Científica del Pacífico. These two findings occurred during a new recovery of the Spanish scientific system. Some of Castro's negatives were rediscovered at Madrid's Museo de Ciencias Naturales in the 1980s. Then, a restoration process of these collodion plates was initiated. As a result of this project an exhibition was organized in 1992 (Calatayud and Puig-Samper 1992) and the museum became interested in the collection. A catalog of insects collected by the explorers of the Spanish Commission was published two years later (Santos Mazorra 1994). Also, Madrid's Jardín Botánico showed renewed interest in Isern's herbarium (Blanco and Rodríguez 1996; Blanco 1998), and the discovery of Espada's iconographic collection—known as Espada's “hidden treasure” —was made at CSIC's Biblioteca General de Humanidades in 1995. This collection includes more than five hundred photographs—either taken by Castro or obtained by the explorers along their journey—and more than a hundred drawings and illustrations. These materials helped reveal new aspects of Espada's process of knowledge production, and have encouraged a new and original restoration and preservation project for the scientific heritage kept at CSIC's institutions.

At the moment, immutable mobiles generated by Comisión Científica del Pacífico are being computerized in order to become “visible.” As part of this process, Espada's archive was digitized and put into the institution's system. An appealing CD ROM that resembles a photograph album has been published too. This CD ROM, of valuable assistance for the study of Castro's representation of the natural world and culture of the Americas (Molina, Pérez-Montes, and López-Ocón 2000), was followed by the construction of the website www.pacifico.csic.es. This site offers all kinds of information on CSIC's expedition-related graphic and scientific collections. The expedition's history is presented in an attractive way following the pattern already established by other projects devoted to the creation of digital history (Abbot 2001), which insert the memory of science in “Telepolis.”²⁷

Even from cyberspace these inscriptions accumulated by the expedition's members almost a hundred and fifty years ago still draw our attention. After many movements over space and time these inscriptions are still circulating among us. Recently, a Brazilian journalist reported that an album including 53 photographs had been found in Rio de Janeiro's Biblioteca Nacional. This album had been given to Emperor Pedro II by the commission in 1862 (Seligman 1999). The publication of another article on the so-called “hidden treasure” by a Spanish journalist in both the press and the Internet made this discovery possible (Aznárez 1999).