The Mexican savant, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645-1700), was mathematician, astronomer, linguist, cartographer, historian, and New Spain's most successful collector of manuscripts containing Mexican antiquities. His generosity in helping other scholars knew no bounds, as Vetancurt, Gemelli Carreri and even European and Oriental savants attested. Don Carlos not only devoted himself to the acquisition of an encyclopedic knowledge, to the collecting of valuable documents and to the helping of fellow scholars, but he also found time to publish numerous books, for the most part of a historical nature. Unlike his contemporary Kino or Bolton of our own days, Sigüenza y Góngora ordinarily did not pursue his historical investigation over desert and ocean trail. He preferred the quiet of his study to the excitement of distant exploration.