Canal de Tajipurú
Date
14 October 1849
Creator
Richard Spruce (1817 - 1893, British) , Explorer
Object type
Archive reference number
Material
Dimensions
height (drawing): 205mm
width (drawing): 253mm
width (drawing): 253mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Landscape sketch with a river in the foreground and a forest of trees and vegetation lining the waters edge in the background.
Annotated bottom left ‘No. 1. Canal de Tajipurú. Rio Para, E. of Breves. 14. Oct. 1849. S. Coast of Isle of Marajó near mouth of Amazon. R.S.’
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent fifteen years collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849-1864, and observing the indigenous people and their cultures, learning 21 different languages while away.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Annotated bottom left ‘No. 1. Canal de Tajipurú. Rio Para, E. of Breves. 14. Oct. 1849. S. Coast of Isle of Marajó near mouth of Amazon. R.S.’
Richard Spruce (1817-1893) British botanist was not a Fellow of the Royal Society. He spent fifteen years collecting in the Amazon of Brazil and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador between 1849-1864, and observing the indigenous people and their cultures, learning 21 different languages while away.
Spruce was already in South America when he was employed by a Kew Gardens-India Office project to secure seeds of the cinchona tree, whose bark yielded the antimalarial drug quinine. In 1860 he shipped around 100,000 dried seeds and over 600 young plants out of Ecuador. A year later, Ecuador adopted laws to protect its cinchona trees from mass exportation.
Associated place