La investigación geológica en la comisión científica de México

During Maximilian’s Empire, Mexican science experimented changes both in its general perspectives and its methodological outlook, due to scientific interaction among the local scientific community and foreign scientists. Maximilian encouraged local scientists to continue working in their ongoing projects, and invited others to participate in new scientific endeavors. Simultaneously, Napoleon III instructed the French Institute to organize a scientific expedition in order to study different aspects of the new Empire. Geological research stood out among the goals of the French expedition, and it was initiated taking into consideration several geological studies made by European travelers during the first half of the century. This paper will describe the main features of such investigations and will analyze the expedition’s goals and accomplishments during its brief sojourn in Mexico.