Cuevas Aguirre y Espinosa, Joseph Francisco de:

$12,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

EXTRACTO DE LOS AUTOS DE DILIGENCIAS, Y RECONOCIMIENTOS DE LOS RIOS, LAGUNAS, VERTIENTES, Y DESAGUES DE LA CAPITAL MEXICO, Y SU VALLE. A groundbreaking study on the Mexican capital region's serious problems with drainage and flooding, featuring a remarkable map of the Valley of Mexico.Drainage in the Valley of Mexico had been a concern well before the Spanish arrived, and the indigenous people had developed a series of dikes and causeways to mitigate flooding around Lake Texcoco. When Cortes failed to restore the dikes destroyed by military maneuvers during the Conquest, flooding was even worse, and local Spanish officials experimented with several flood control projects as early as 1553, including draining Texcoco, but problems remained. Over the next two centuries, ongoing public works projects attempted to address drainage issues with limited success. This work contains a compilation of the investigations, surveys, and projects undertaken by various authorities relating to the "Desague" (the ongoing drainage project) up until the time of publication, and sets forth recommendations to deal with the problem once and for all.Cuevas was a lawyer for the Real Audiencia and Regidor for the city, and had been ordered by the Viceroy to accompany the engineers and superintendent on their survey and to provide a report of the findings. Accompanying the text is the first appearance in print of the remarkable map engraved by Antonio Moreno after a late 17th-century map created by Carl

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