| Summary: | This article examines the descriptions of the Madeira River, one of the most important tributaries of the Amazon, that were made following two scientific expeditions. In the Portuguese expedition through the Brazilian Amazon at the beginning of the 18th Century, Engineer Ricardo Franco de Almeida Serra mapped the Madeira and described it in his diary. In the French expedition through the South American interior in the mid-19th Century, Francis de Castelnau did not explore the Madeira but nevertheless published a map and a narrative of his exploration of the river, which were based on a study of the materials left behind by Almeida Serra and his fellow explorers. Here the article analyzes how the French appropriated the knowledge produced by the Portuguese expedition, incorporating it into their own output.
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