May 23, 1859.] SOUTH AMERICA— ASCENT OF THE PARANA. 331 



states, has presented to me a copy of the map and sections of his 

 proposed line, which have been laid before the Society. No one 

 can doubt the great interest attached to such an undertaking ; it 

 remains, however, to be seen whether it is possible to raise the 

 funds necessary for the completion of so gigantic an enterprise. 



South America. — In my Address of 1857 1 noticed the preliminary 

 account, all that had then appeared, of Lieutenant Page's ' Explo- 

 ration and Survey of the Eio de la Plata and its Tributaries,' the 

 full Report of which has now been published at the expense of the 

 Government of the United States. 



It forms an important contribution to the geography of South 

 America, and may be well classed with the works of his brother- 

 officers, Herndon, Gibbon, and Gilliss, whose travels were also un- 

 dertaken under the liberal auspices and at the cost of the Govern- 

 ment of the United States. The number of positions which have 

 been for the first time determined and brought together by these 

 officers will leave our mapmakers but little excuse for not correct- 

 ing in the maps of South America the positions of many towns and 

 places of importance, the true sites of which were never before, 

 perhaps, fixed by observation. 



The uninterrupted ascent of the Parana by an American steamer 

 through 13 degrees of latitude as high as 19 degrees, fully corrobo- 

 rates the belief, founded on the old Spanish accounts, that the higher 

 waters of this mighty river are navigable for vessels of quite as 

 large a burthen as are requisite for carrying on a commercial inter- 

 course with the rich provinces of Matto Grosso and Cuyaba, in 

 the very heart of the continent. The observations, however, of 

 Lieutenant Page (like those made in the case of the Yang-tse-Keang 

 in China) show how little reliance is to be placed, even from 

 year to year, on the most careful surveys and soundings of a great 

 river liable to such alterations from periodical floodings. He says 

 — " On comparing the charts of Captain Sullivan, made in 1847, 

 with his own surveys made in 1853 and 1854, it appeared not only 

 that the channels but the appearance of the river was in some places 

 materially changed ; islands have been enlarged, others reduced in 

 size, some have disappeared altogether, and their positions as marked 

 upon his chart are now, in some instances, the channel of the river." 

 The track of the Waterwitch, at the lower pass of St. Juan (in 

 lat. 30^ 36'), passes directly over the position of an island marked 

 on Sullivan's charts. This, as Lieutenant Page observes, proves 

 nothing wrong in his surveys, but it is an interesting factj showing 



