152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



so easy that I trust the riches of that country will not be left 

 ungathered by our active and enterprising population. 



Having said thus much of the general productiveness of the 

 country, I suppose it will not be out of place if I allude to some 

 of the products themselves. The family of plants most exten- 

 sively growing there, and from which the largest variety of 

 products is obtained, is the palm. Tliere is an endless variety 

 of them, and the articles which are furnished by each one are 

 numerous also. But before I proceed to that, let me give you 

 some idea of the character of the river communications of the 

 Amazon. 



Here we have the course of the Amazon [representing it on 

 blackboard.] Near Para, we have two great branches, which 

 surround the island of Marajo, and here comes the Tocantins, 

 which descends from the table land of Brazil, and pours into 

 that southern branch of the Amazon. The Araguay comes 

 next ; it does not come as a body in the Amazon, but sends off 

 branches which pass into the Rio Tocantins, before it has 

 reached the Amazon, and so that inter-communications are 

 established of which I spoke before. And here comes the 

 Tapajoz, uniting with the Amazon at the place where stands 

 the city of Santarem. That, too, sends off branches, and these, 

 again, establish inter-communication with the Amazon itself; 

 so that you have a network of rivers communicating with one 

 another over a width of at least sixty, eighty, one hundred, and 

 one hundred and twenty miles ; and that constitutes, properly, 

 the bottom of the river system. Higher up, these inter-com- 

 municating branches are not so numerous. But let me go one 

 step further. Here is the Madeira. Now, the Madeira sends 

 off a branch which comes to unite with the Tapajoz, receiving 

 itself a number of large streams. The Rio Andira, which empties 

 into this branch of the Amazon's stream, is, at the point of its 

 junction, ten miles in width. Thus one branch of a branch of 

 the Amazon is, where it pours into the Rio Madeira, ten miles 

 in width, at the time when the river is full. This land here 

 [representing an island,] is known as the island of Tupinam- 

 baranas, and it is a network of islands and lakes which is very 

 striking. Now, I come to the Manhes, which is a lake here. 

 Then here is another river, the Rio Negro, one of the great 

 rivers which comes from the table land of Guiana, which has 



