IHE ALUMNI JOURNAL 



187 



with more practical matters, yet the lib- 

 erality displayed by the Company in 

 rendering it possible should be appreci- 

 ated in scientific circles, and constitutes 

 the only good reason why an account of 

 its aSairs should find a place in a journal 

 of this kind. 



The Orinoco is divided by a narrow 

 portion near Bolivar into the Upper and 

 lyower Orinoco. This locality is known 

 as the Angustura (meaning 'the Nar- 

 rows'), and from this term we get the 

 name for the bark coming from that re- 

 gion and tor the bitters made, or sup- 

 posed to be made therefrom. At this 

 point the rise of the river during the 

 rainy season amounts to about ninety 

 feet. This rise is diminished as we pro- 

 ceed toward the mouth, where the river 

 widens and divides into numerous (about 

 sixty) branches, constituting its delta. 

 During the dry season the current of the 

 Lower Orinoco is slight and the river is 

 affected by the rise of the tide for nearly 

 two hundred miles from the coast; but as 

 it becomes swollen the current increases, 

 and the numerous outlets become unable 

 to discharge the water brought down to 

 them. The current is then not only 

 swift but highly treacherous, setting 

 here in on; direction and there in anoth- 

 er, running one way at the surface and 

 another a few feet below, and thickly be- 

 set with eddies, many of which are con- 

 tinually shifting their position and many 

 of which are so powerful that even our 

 launch had to be carefully handled in 

 order to resist their influence. Bathing 

 in this river after its rise is exceedingly 

 dangerous, as an undertow sets outward 

 from the shore in most places, making it 

 a very exhausting operation for an or- 

 dinary swimmer to pass in over the 

 hundred feet nearest to the bank. In 

 . this way one member of our party, Mr. 

 Coffin, became exhausted and unable to 

 reach the shore, although but a few 



yards away from it. His death at the 

 last moment, when he had been caught 

 at some distance below the surface by an 

 oar, was due to the sudden appearance 

 of one of these eddies, which whirled 

 him out of reach at the moment that Mr. 

 Weeks dove to grasp him. Although 

 everj^ effort was made, the furious cur- 

 rent and the muddiness of the water 

 rendered it impossible to find any further 

 trace of him after this fatal moment. 

 Upon another occasion Messrs. Dart and 

 Gregory had a very narrow escape from 

 drowning through the oversetting of 

 their boat by a sea-cow, which arose un- 

 derneath it. Notwithstanding that this 

 was during the dry season, when the 

 current was comparatively weak, both 

 men reached the bank in a completely 

 exhausted condition. These two occur- 

 rences impressed all the members of the 

 party with a sense of the dangers of fall- 

 ing into this river, such as no ordinary 

 observation of its current could ever 

 have done. 



The islands of the delta have never 

 been explored, nor have even those chan- 

 nels which are most navigated been 

 charted. It is not to be supposed that 

 these islands consist altogether of depos- 

 ited sediment. Although thus aug- 

 mented and many of them altered in ap- 

 pearance, yet many of them have a basis 

 of rock and have been formed rather by 

 deviations of the stream, which has cut 

 them off from the main. Aside from the 

 properly recognized islands, which are 

 numerous, there are many smaller ones 

 (perhaps we may regard them as in pro- 

 cess of isolation) which during the dry 

 season are either a portion of the main, 

 or separated from it only by swamps, 

 but which during the rainy season are 

 separated by broad channels. The in- 

 land swamps among these higher por- 

 tions form a striking feature of the re- 

 gion. Some of them are permanent, 



