GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



435 



*is rich in grains (rice and maize principally), 

 cotton, coffee, cocoa, and the edible palms, 

 bread fruit, oranges, lemons, plantains, yuccas, 

 pine apples, plums, cherries, pawpaws and 

 other delicate fruits ; has numerous medicinal 

 and poisonous plants and gums, as well as 

 abundant dye-stuffs and precious woods; and its 

 mountains yield salt, sulphate of lime, alum, 

 sulphur, iron ore, lignite and gold. 



Among the works throwing most light upon 

 the geography of the central portion of South 

 America, which have been recently published, 

 there has been none more satisfactory in its 

 portraiture of the inhabitants, animals and 

 plants of that partially explored region, than 

 Henry ^Walter Bates' " Naturalist on the River 

 Amazon ; a Record of Eleven Years' Residence 

 and Travel unfler the Equator," published in 

 London, in 1863. During his long residence in 

 South America Mr. Bates visited all the navi- 

 gable portions of the Upper and Lower Amazon, 

 as well as several of its larger affluents, and 

 resided for some years at Santarem, on the Rio 

 Negro, and afterward for other years at Ega, 

 on the Upper Amazon. Among the spoils 

 brought or sent home from his South American 

 explorations, were 15,000 species of insects, 

 8,000 of them new to naturalists, numerous new 

 species of mammals, fishes, &c., and a great " 

 abundance of birds of most beautiful plumage. 

 He confirms Professor Raimondi's testimony in 

 regard to the cannibalism of some of the Indian 

 tribes, but regards the Indian, as in general, 

 inferior to the Negroes and Mulattoes of the 

 country. There is no caste distinction there ; 

 the Negro, Indian, half-breed and white enjoy- 

 ing the same privileges and consideration, and 

 holding the same offices. Of these, in general, 

 he found the Negroes the most intelligent, re- 

 fined and honest. ^ 



The Royal Society of London sent, some 

 years since, Mr. Clements R. Markham to Peru, 

 to investigate the regions producing the various 

 spices of Chinchona or Peruvian bark, and to 

 attempt their transplantation to India. After 

 many difficulties the attempt has proved suc- 

 cessful, and Mr. Markham's report of his ex- 

 periences is exceedingly interesting. 



The explorations of the geologist indicate 

 that there are changes of elevation in progress 

 , along the coasts of North and probably also 

 South America. The coast of Greenland, for a 

 distance of six hundred miles, is subsiding, while 

 that of the American continent, on its eastern 

 coast, is gradually rising, from the shores of the 

 Arctic Sea to the northern coasts of South 

 America, and perhaps farther. On the Pacific 

 coast, too, there i?, at some points, a gradual 

 elevation whether at all, is not yet certain. 

 The effect of these changes on the topography 

 and extent of the continent is likely to be 

 very great in the course of time. The arctic 

 lands which now approach nearer than the 

 eastern continent to the north pole, may reach 

 it ; Hudson's Bay may become a fertile valley 

 with several considerable lakes ; the banks of 





Newfoundland join the mainland, and thus 

 permit the crossing of the Atlantic in three or 

 four days ; the coast line of the Atlantic States 

 may be carried out to the edge of the Gulf 

 Stream ; the West Indies be united into three 

 or four large islands ; the Delta of the Missis- 

 sippi extend a hundred and fifty miles further 

 into the Gulf, and the Other rivers of the coast 

 be lengthened in a corresponding degree. With 

 these changes must come also material modifi- 

 cations of climate, an intense cold and greater 

 barrenness at the North; fiercer and more 

 tropical heat at the South ; a milder but moister 

 climate along the Atlantic coast. These changes 

 will hardly come in our time, but if the present 

 rate of elevation be continued, a century hence 

 may be sufficient for the development of most 

 of them. 



The West Indies offer little of interest or 

 novelty in a geographical point of view. Hayti, 

 which offered, in 1862, strong inducements to 

 colored emigrants from the United States, has 

 not been able to fulfil all its promises, and the 

 grant of the island A'Vache, on- its southern 

 coast, to an adventurer named Bernard Koch, 

 who sought to improve it by means of laborers 

 obtained from the freedinen in Virginia, has 

 turned out badly: the emigrants have been 

 brought back to this country, after losing nearly 

 one fourth of their number by sickness and 

 death, the result of exposure and hardship, the 

 survivors having lost their time and services, 

 and all that they had, by the fraud and dis- 

 honesty of Koch. A remarkable cave has 

 recently been discovered in Cuba not far from 

 the city of Matanzas. It is called the Cave of 

 Bellamar, and in the magnificent size of its 

 apartments, and the beauty of its stalactites and 

 stalagmites, seems to be one of the wonders of 

 the world. The entrance hall, called the Gothic 

 Temple, is 900 feet in length by 240 feet wide, 

 the roof being, at its highest point, 60 feet 

 above the floor of the hall. It is adorned with 

 numerous pillars and mantles of great beauty. 

 Beyond this is the Gallery of the Fountain, a 

 corridor 2,400 feet in length, having in its centre 

 a spring hemmed in with stalactites of most 

 exquisite forms. Beyond, and after passing 

 through a finely formed arch, the visitor comes 

 to the Hall of the Benediction, the floor, walls, 

 and vault of which are of the purest white, and 

 these, as well as the numerous columns and 

 pendants, sparkle in the light with the most 

 brilliant crystals. The Mantle of the Virgin, 

 the Snow Drift, the Lake of Dahlias, the 

 Closet of the Beautiful Matanceras, the Hattiey 

 Gallery, &c., are names bestowed upon other 

 portions of the cave. Many of the concretions 

 possess the property of double refraction, and 

 some of them are violet or rose colored, or of 

 golden hues. The cave runs from west to 

 east, and its maximum depth is 36 feet. Its 

 temperature never exceeds 80 degrees Fahren- 

 heit. 



In ETTEOPE, there have been few geographi- 

 cal but many archie ological explorations. The 



