338 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



and down to the seacoast of British Guiana. He is an ad- 

 mirable representative of the men who are now opening 

 South America to scientific knowledge. 



On May 7 we bade good-by to our kind Brazilian friends 

 and sailed northward for Barbadoes and New York. 



Zoologically the trip had been a thorough success. 

 Cherrie and Miller had collected over twenty-five hundred 

 birds, about five hundred mammals, and a few reptiles, 

 batrachians, and fishes. Many of them were new to science; 

 for much of the region traversed had never previously been 

 worked by any scientific collector. 



Of course, the most important work we did was the 

 geographic work, the exploration of the unknown river, 

 undertaken at the suggestion of the Brazilian Government, 

 and in conjunction with its representatives. No piece of 

 work of this kind is ever achieved save as it is based on 

 long-continued previous work. As I have before said, what 

 we did was to put the cap on the pyramid that had been 

 built by Colonel Rondon and his associates of the Tele- 

 graphic Commission during the six previous years. It 

 was their scientific exploration of the chapadao, their map- 

 ping the basin of the Juruena, and their descent of the 

 Gy-Parana that rendered it possible for us to solve the 

 mystery of the River of Doubt. On the map facing page 

 vii I have given the outline route of my entire South 

 American trip. The course of the new river is given sep- 

 arately. 



The work of the commission, much the greatest work of 

 the kind ever done in South America, is one of the many, 

 many achievements which the republican government of 



