Magnitude of the Aiviazon. 279 



holding it sweeping disdainfully by the great Madeira as 

 if its contribution was of no account, discharging into the 

 sea one hundred thousand cubic feet of w^ater per second 

 more than our Mississippi, rolling its turbid waves thou- 

 sands of miles exactly as it pleases,— plowing a new 

 channel every year, with tributaries twenty miles wide, 

 and an island in its mouth twice the size of Massachusetts. 



