[The discovery of the tropics: Williams College's expedition to Venezuela in 1867]

Myer's expedition to Venezuela passed unnoticed for U.S. intellectual circles in the 19th century. Although Humboldt's work made it known scientifically, the country remains today terra incognita in some respects, such as the knowledge of her natural resources. Venezuela's political and economic conditions in the 19th century prevented the publication at the time of the foreign literature on her natural history. In the last decades of the 20th century there is at last a new and growing interest in studying and translating the legacy that international scholars on Venezuela left.