William Bollaert papers

Bollaert's papers consist of seven detailed travel journals or notebooks for his South American expeditions, a report to the Arequipa Mining Company in 1826, a few coastal charts of the southern-most parts of South America, and a few coastal profile sketches of Cape Horn, Flores Island, Bold Point, and the lighthouse at Montevideo. The journals include detailed observations about mines and mineral resources, the trade in nitrate, coal, salt, and other chemicals, people and places encountered, archaeological sites, local history, indigenous cultures, notes on his reading in Spanish literature, and speculations on the possibility of building a railroad from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires.