^6 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



July 12tli Spruce had reached Para, and began making those 

 splendid collections, which ultimately attained the large number 

 of 7000 flowering plants alone, and have added so much to our 

 knowledge of the vegetation of Equatorial America. He spent 

 three months in the vicinity of that port, and then went up to 

 Santarem at the mouth, of the Tapajos, where he fell in with. 

 Dr. Alfred Eussel Wallace. In November he went seventy miles 

 farther up to Obydos, and thence explored the Trombetas and 

 its tributary the Arepecuru as far as the cataracts of the latter 

 in lat. 0° 47' IN"., fixing five latitudes by astronomical observation, 

 and mapping those previously unknown rivers. He returned to 

 Santarem in January 1850, and made that place his headquarters 

 till the following October, when he left it for the Barra do Eio 

 Negro, arriving there after a voyage of 63 days, 30 of which 

 were spent in the channels of the great island of Tupinambarana. 

 Here he remained the greater part of 1851, and in November he 

 started for the head-waters of the Eio Negro in a boat of nine 

 tons' burden, which he had fitted up expressly for his collecting. 

 Early in the next year he reached the village of Sao Grabriel, and 

 after staying there seven months he proceeded up the large river 

 Uapes, which till then had hardly been known even by name to 

 Europeans. He found his efforts well rewarded by a rich harvest, 

 and remained in this region till March 1853, when he sailed 

 out into the Eio Negro and up that river beyond the Brazilian 

 frontier as far as San Carlos del Eio Negro, making this village 

 his headquarters during his stay in Venezuela, which lasted until 

 November 1854. Whilst here he made two expeditions to the 

 Orinoco, one by way of the natural canal of the Casiquiari, and 

 the other by the portage of Pimichin and the Atabapo, exploring 

 the river Pacimoni to its source among lofty and picturesque 

 mountains, and mapping it as well as the Cunucunuma. He came 

 down the Eio Negro to the Barra do Eio Negro about the end of 

 1854 ; then, availing himself of the newly established service of 

 steamers on the Amazon, he went to Nauta in Peru, near the 

 mouth of the Ucayali, thence by canoe up the Maraiion and its 

 affluent the Huallaga to Tarrapota, where he stayed nearly two 

 years, collecting there, in addition to other plants, 250 species of 

 ferns in an area of 50 miles in diameter. In March 1857 he left 

 for Ecuador, going down the Huallaga to its junction with the 

 Mararion, then ascending the latter river to Canelos, finally 

 through the forest of Canelos on foot to the village of Bancs, at 

 the foot of the volcano of Tunguagua. In this journey he was 

 compelled to abandon his collections in passing the swollen river- 

 tops, to escape perishing of hunger, but happily recovered the 

 bulk afterwards. He stayed here six months, and in January 1858 

 removed to Ambato, making that his centre for excursions for 

 more than two years, including excursions to Quito and Eio 

 Bamba, his movements being greatly hindered by the disturbed 

 state of the country at that time. Details of these journeys may 

 be found in his letters to Sir William Hooker, which the latter 

 published in various volumes of the ' London Journal of Botany.' 



