like the i^^ 



GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 357 



of elands, 2:azelles, etc., found everywhere else, were not to be 

 seen. The forest, thinly inhabited by man, was still more scantily 

 inhabited by beast. Now and then, by the side of the wild man, 

 i-oamed the apes, among them the savage gorilla. There were no 

 beasts of burden, no horse, no camel, no donkey, no cattle ; man, 

 or rather woman, was the beast of burden. Often miles were trav- 

 elled over without hearing the sound of a bird, the chatter of a 

 monkey, or the footsteps of a gazelle." 



For remarks on the climate and the condition of the people, see 

 Reports of the British Association for 1866. 



GEOGRAPHY OF BRAZIL. 



According to Prof. Agassiz, in his Lowell Lectures in Boston, 

 Oct., 1866, one great feature of the river is that it has no delta, or l/j^ 

 projection of accumulated mud extending into the sea, "" 

 Mississippi, the Nile, and the Ganges. Yet it carries an nnmense 

 amount of mud in its watei-s. Tliis is explained by tlie fact that 

 owing to a combination of circumstances not yet unravelled, the 

 ocean encroaches at a fearful rate on the continent north of the 

 eastern promontory of Brazil. Above that point the coast of 

 Brazil ran nearly north, so that a belt two or three hundred miles 

 wide has already disappeared. The Amazon once extended three 

 hundred miles beyond its present mouth. Whether it is owing to 

 the softness of the soil or the configuration of the coast, the lecturer 

 was unable to say. There is no subsidence at tlie ocean shore. 



The waters of the Amazon, and the peculiarities of its physical 

 attril)utes, are very different from what we have been accustomed 

 to hear and read of them. The whole Amazonian basin is a vast 

 plain. There are no hills, but an immense expanse of woods and 

 water. The distance from the source of the Amazon in the Andes 

 to the Atlantic- Ocean, is two thousand miles in a direct line, but 

 by the course of the river four thousand miles. The plain through 

 which the river and its tributaries flow is twelve hundred miles 

 wide, and in some places eighteen hundred. It is so low that the 

 whole slope from the Andes to the Atlantic is not over two hun- 

 dred and fifty feet. It cannot be compared to an ordinary river 

 valley, and the river itself is different from all others in the world. 

 Its mouth is one hundred and sixty miles wide, and its mud tinges 

 the ocean for a long distance. Lakes and lagoons are numerous. 

 In Au<rnst and September the snow on the Andes begins to melt; 

 but its^influence is very slowly felt by the Amazon, the lower sec- 

 tion not feeling the rise till the month of March. The river is 

 highest from June to October. The rise is not less than thirty, 

 anil sometimes exceeds fifty feet. "By a singular operation of nat- 

 ural causes, the southern tributaries of the Amazon are fullest 

 when those on the northern bank are lowest, and vice versa. 

 There are times when the whole basin is under water, and the 

 dense forests may be navigated. 



The color of the water in the streams flowin.g from the Andes is 



turlnd, a sort of cream color, while that in the tributaries from the 



-plains is black. These latter carry along such immense amounts 



