170 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



afterwards learnt that there were not more than 

 eighteen or twenty families settled throughout the 

 whole country from Manacapuru. to Quary, a distance 

 of 240 miles ; and these, as before observed, do not 

 live on the banks of the main stream, but on the 

 shores of inlets and lakes. 



The fishermen twice brought me small rounded pieces 

 of very porous pumice-stone, which they had picked up 

 floating on the surface of the main current of the river. 

 They were to me objects of great curiosity as being 

 messengers from the distant volcanoes of the Andes : 

 Cotopaxi, Llanganete, or Sangay, which rear their peaks 

 amongst the rivulets that feed some of the early tribu- 

 taries of the Amazons, such as the Macas, the Pastaza, 

 and the Napo. The stones must have already travelled 

 a distance of 1200 miles. I afterwards found them 

 rather common : the Brazilians use them for cleaning 

 rust from their guns, and firmly believe them to be 

 solidified river foam. A friend once brought me, when 

 I lived at Santarem, a large piece which had been found 

 in the middle of the stream below Monte Alegre, about 



000 miles further down the river : having reached this 

 distance, pumice-stones would be pretty sure of being 

 carried out to sea, and floated thence with the north- 

 westerly Atlantic current to shores many thousand miles 

 distant from the volcanoes which ejected them. They 

 are sometimes found stranded on the banks in different 

 parts of the river. Reflecting on this circumstance since 



1 arrived in England, the probability of these porous 

 fragments serving as vehicles for the transportation of 



| seeds of plants, eggs of insects, spawn of fresh-water 



