I 



Ceeation of the Amazon. 117 



ley of the Amazon was sketched out and moulded in its 

 lap. The tidal waves of the Atlantic were dashing against 

 the Cordilleras, and a legion of riviilets were busily plow- 

 ing up the sides into deep ravines ; the sediment produced 

 by this incessant wear and tear was carried eastward, and 

 spread out stratum by stratum, till the shallow sea between 

 the Andes and the islands of Guiana and Brazil was filled 

 up with sand and clay. Huge glaciers (thinks Agassiz), 

 afterward descending, moved over the inclined plane, and 

 ground the loose rock to powder.* Eddies and currents, 

 throwing up sand-banks as they do now, gradually defined 

 the limits of the tributary streams, and directed them into 

 one main trunk, which worked for itself a wide, deep bed, 

 capable of containing its accumulated flood. Then and 

 thus was created the Amazon. 



In South America Nature has framed her works on a gi- 

 gantic scale. Where else combined do we see su.ch a series 

 of towering mountains, such a volume of river-water, and 

 such wide-spreading plains ? We have no proper concep- 

 tion of Andine grandeur till we learn that the top of the 

 tallest mountain in North America is nearly a mile be- 

 neath the untrodden dome of Chimborazo; nor any just 

 view of the vast dimensions of the Amazonian Valley till 

 we find that all the United States could be packed in it 

 ' without touching its boundaries ; nor any adequate idea of 

 the Amazon itself till we ascertain that it drains a million 

 square miles more than the Mississippi. 



South America is a triangular continent, with its axis, 

 the Andes, not central, as in Europe, but l}ang on its ex- 

 treme western edge, and in harmony with the well-known 

 law that the highest mountains and the grandest volcanoes 

 face the broadest ocean. The highlands of Brazil and 



* On this point see Chapter XVII. 



