UNKNOWN VOYAGERS IN SOUTHERN PATAGONIA DURING THE 1870 DECADE

Abstract

Information, till now in fact unknown, about three excursions done to southern Patagonia during the years of the 1870 decade and that started in the old Chilean colony of Punta Arenas, are given. The protagonists were an Australian, Ralph Williams, and two French, Hilaire Bouquet and an unknown chemist. All of them left narrations about there voyages and, although each one of different value, they are assessed in the context of the age and their contributions to a better knowledge of the ethnography and the southern nature during an epoch immediately before the beginning of the colonization settlements in the territory.