262 



NATURE 



\Feb. 4, 1875 



limited its field of operation and discovery. " It has 

 already furnished us with a clue to many of the mysteries 

 of life, and we look to it for many more : what is life? 

 what is death ? " This List quotation will show that he 

 puts no limit to the phenomena to be considered in the 

 investigations of the biologist ; but when man has solved 

 all these problems, he will be as wise, if not as powerful 

 as the gods, 



SOUTH AMERICAN TRAVEL* 

 II. 



Travels in South America, from the Pacific Ocean to the 

 Atlantic Ocean. By Paul Marcoy. Illustrated by 525 

 engravings and ten maps. Two vols. (London : Blackie 

 and Son, 1S75.) 



The Arnazon and Madeira Rivers : Sketches and Descrip- 

 t :011s from the Aolc- book of an Explorer. By Franz 

 Keller, Engineer. With sixty-eight illus' rations en 

 wood. (London : Chapman and Hall, 1874.) 



Two Years in Peru, with Exploration of its Antiquities. 

 By T. J. Hutchinson, M.A.I. With map and numerous 

 illustrations. Two vols. (London : -Sampson Low, 1873.) 



MR. KELLER'S work is a much more business-like 

 and compact production than that of M. Marcoy, 

 noticed in last week's number. While the beautiful 

 illustrations which enrich the book show that the author 

 has a high power of artistic reproduction, and while this 

 may have led him to throw over the scenes he endeavours 

 to reproduce a little touch of glamour, a little of "the 

 light that never was on sea or land," one feels on reading 

 Mr. Keller's narrative that he is in the hands of a 

 thoroughly earnest and trustworthy observer. He has, 

 however, committed the sin of publishing a narrative of 

 exploration without a map. We should mention also that 

 not one of the three books we are noticing contains an 

 indtx, a want which will considerably impair their use- 

 fulness to the student 



Mr. Kellei's work is almost entirely concerned with the 

 Madeira, the largest tributary of the Amazon from the 

 south. His journey from the time of his departuie from, 

 till his return to Para was accomplished between 

 November 1867 and December 1868, a period of thirteen 

 months, during which, including vexatious delays, he 

 ascended the Madeira as far as Trinidad, on the Mamore, 

 in Bolivia. If our readers look at a map, they will see 

 that Mr. Keller could not have been idle during the time, 

 especially when it is remembered that his purpose was to 

 make a careful hydrographical inspection of the Madeira, 

 in order to report upon the possibility of utilising it as a 

 navigable highway for commerce. 



The river, as far as Santo Antonio, seems capable of being 

 rendered quite navigable, but above this the rapids are 

 so numerous and formidable that it seems hopeless to 

 expect that the upper river can ever be made available 

 for anything but boats. The only means, therefore, by 

 which the treasures that exist in the interior of South 

 America can be made accessible by the Madeira route is 

 by a railway from Santo Antonio upwards. It would seem 

 that some such project is in contemplation. The construc- 

 tion of railways, we learn from Mr. Hutchinson's work, is 



' Continued from p. 245. 



being carried out rapidly in Peru on a very extensive scale, 

 mainly under the superintendence of Mr. Henry Meiggs, 

 who has difficulties of the most formidable kind to con- 

 tend with in piercing the Andes ; in a short time, how- 

 ever, we may expect to see all parts of this country easy 

 of access. In Brazil the mere engineering part of the 

 work would seem to present no difficulties whatever. 



Before any such scheme is carried out, ere the whole of 

 this primeval region be dcvirginated by swarms of white 

 men, we hope that its natural history and ethnology will 

 be fully if not exhaustively investigated. In this respect 

 such works as those of Marcoy and Keller are of great 

 value. 



Mr. Keller made excellent use of [the short time he 

 spent in the interior ; for while he most faithfully and suc- 

 cessfully accomplished the mission with which he was 

 entrusted, he at the same time made a series of really 

 valuable observations on all that he saw that was worth 

 noting. His narrative is not, however, arranged in the 

 same method as that of M. Marcoy, who recounts each 

 day's experience as he pioceeds, and in whose case, there- 

 fore, the want of an index is peculiarly felt. Mr. Keller 

 has systematised the results of his journey, and in a 

 series of chapters gives a clear and well- written summary 

 of his observations. In an introductory chapter he gives 

 a brief account of what is known of the physical and 

 social condition of Brazil and of its political history. He 

 then, in two chapters, gives a sort of itinerary of his 

 expedition up the Madeira, with occasional observations 

 on the inhabitants and the natural history of its banks, 

 and a very clear and full account of the difficulties attend- 

 ing his attempt to navigate the river, so studded with 

 rapids, past every one of which his fleet of boats had to 

 be carried. The region seems to be very sparsely 

 peopled, though its natural resources are superabundant. 

 The material of the hills over the whole region of the 

 rapids he found to be the same ; "gneiss, with mostly a 

 very. pronounced stratification, and always the same run. 

 He examined it very closely," he states, "expecting to 

 find, according to theory of Agassiz, numerous erratic 

 boulders of different coirposilion lying on the regularly 

 formed rock. But neither there nor higher up in Bolivia 

 could wc discover any trace of these ' foundlings,' even as 

 Agassiz himself was unable to discover, in the environs 

 of Rio de Janeiro, the rochcs st rites and roches mouton- 

 nces of Switzerland, which testify to an ice-period with 

 its immense glaciers." 



In the chapter headed "Canoe and Camp Life,'' Mr. 

 Keller gives a graphic account of the daily life of an expe- 

 dition such as his ; and in another, on "Hunting and Fish- 

 ing," he gives a pretty full idci of the larger fauna to be met 

 with on the route he traversed. In the succeeding one he 

 describes the vegetation of the virgin forest of the Madeira 

 and Amazon, devotes considerable space to the Caout- 

 chouc Tree which so abounds here, and to an account of the 

 process by which its sap is converted into theindiarubber 

 of commerce. He also gives a list of the other principal 

 plants which are utihsed for commercial purposes, in the 

 shape of medicines, oils, resins, dye-stuffs, ropes, &:c. ; 

 and it strikes one that it would certainly be worth while 

 to make a region so superabundantly stored with animal 

 and vegetable hfe of such great practical utility to man, 

 easily accessible to the merchants of the world. 



