GUIANA LOWLANDS 135 



Guiana Lowlands. The Atlantic slopes of the Guianas 

 and their foot-hills are under the influence of the equa- 

 torial rainfall and enjoy a double wet season, while there 

 is never complete drought. For this reason they are 

 densely clad with heavy forests, only interrupted by 

 occasional clearings of savanas on the watersheds of their 

 short streams. The low coast-belt with its shallow 

 coastal shelf is one of lagoons and luxuriant mangrove 

 swamps, teeming with animal life, extremely unhealthy, 

 girt in by brakes of tall reeds, sedges and grass, or over- 

 hung with low, swampy forests and jungles. This belt 

 may extend ten or twenty miles inland, and is succeeded 

 by the tall rain-forest, itself a northern spur of the 

 Amazon selva, from which it does not differ in any 

 material point. Cocoa, rubber, palms, spices, and sugar- 

 cane are the chief products of the Guiana lowlands. 

 The Demerara district is an important sugar centre, 

 while the rubber and the gum (balata) of the Guianas 

 are valuable. 



The Amazon Basin. This most extensive of alluvial 

 plains is famous for its wealth of equatorial rain-forests, 

 of which it offers the most perfect type. Its flat surface 

 is hardly varied by the scattered undulations or low 

 hills, while the land is regularly flooded by the mighty 

 river, sometimes for twenty miles or more on both sides, 

 and is thus transformed into an inland sea. Of the 

 climate little need be said : an equable high temperature 

 throughout the year and day — about 80° F., a regular 

 and plentiful rainfall, with two seasons of heaviest pre- 

 cipitation, give the very conditions for a maximum and 

 uninterrupted growth ; but it may be added that the 

 mighty network of the trunk river and its innumerable 

 tributaries is more efficient for irrigation than for 

 drainage. There is no combination of physical conditions 



