THE GREAT AMAZONIAN FOREST. 177 



sphere, and a damp soil, a forest of the equatorial 

 character will be found pushing up into our next di- 

 vision "The Great Bush Country." 



This, Mr. Wallace seems practically to admit, for 

 he is careful to point out that " beyond the forests 

 both to the north and south, we first meet with woody, 

 and then open country, soon changing into arid plains, 

 and even deserts in the vicinity of the two tropics." * 

 This woody and open (or rather " park-like ") country 

 is what constitutes the bush region, which runs in, at 

 intervals, among the heavy forests, at its equatorial 

 margin, and up into the desert zone adjoining, accord- 

 ing as the nature and extent of moisture contained 

 in the soil and atmosphere may determine. 



Reverting, however, to our consideration of the 

 equatorial forest belt, precisely the same conditions 

 and description of forest existing upon the African 

 continent are likewise found to recur in America. 

 In the great Amazonian forest region, for instance, 

 Mr. Wallace states that " a circle 1 100 miles in diameter 

 could be drawn within its limits." f 



This enormous forest whose area, like that of its 

 African rival, is still most imperfectly known has 

 usually been held by writers upon these subjects to 

 be the most wonderful example as well as the most 

 perfect type of the equatorial forest in existence, and 

 very little of it has been regularly explored. 



The following picturesque description of a traveller's 

 sensations when about to enter its shades is from the 

 pen of Mr. Herbert H. Smith, an American who has 

 recently returned from Brazil: 



* Tropical Nature, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1878, p. 28. 



f The Amazon and the Rio Negro, by A. R. Wallace, 1853. 



VOL. I. 12 



