The map accompanying this paper (Plate I) conveys a clear idea of the position and the leading topographic features of the province. The boundaries separating it from Veragua on the east and Costa Rica on the west run nearly north and south. The Atlantic coast line has a northwest and southeast trend and is indented by the bay or lagoon of Chiriqui. The Bay of David extends into the land on the south and the Gulf of Dolce forms a part of the western boundary. A range of mountains, consisting principally of volcanic products, extends midway along the province, forming the continental watershed.[1] The drainage comprises two systems of short rivers that run, one to the north and the other to the south, into the opposing oceans. Belts of lowland border the shore lines. That on the south side is from twenty to thirty miles wide and rises gradually into a plateau two or three thousand feet in elevation, which is broken by hills and cut by cañons. This belt affords a natural thoroughfare for peoples migrating from continent to continent, and doubtless formed at all periods an attractive district for occupation. It is in the middle portion of this strip of lowland, especially in the drainage area of the Bay of David, that the most plentiful evidences of ancient occupation are found. Scattering remains have been discovered all along, however, connecting the art of Costa Rica with that of Veragua, Panama, and the South American continent. The islands of the coast furnish some fragmentary monuments and relics, and there is no doubt that a vast quantity of material yet remains within the province to reward the diligent search of future explorers. [Footnote 1: For physical features, see report of Lieutenant Norton (Report Chiriqui Commission, Ex. Doc. 41, 1860).] LITERATURE. The antiquarian literature of the province is extremely meager, being confined to brief sketches made by transient visitors or based for the most part upon the testimony of gold hunters and government explorers, who took but little note of the unpretentious relics of past ages. As there are few striking monuments, the attention of archæologists was not called to the history of primeval man in this region, and until recently the isthmus was supposed to have remained practically unoccupied by that group of cultured nations whose works in Peru and in Mexico excite the wonder of the world. But, little by little, it has been discovered that at some period of the past the province was thickly populated, and by races possessed of no mean culture.