488 The Andes and the Amazons. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 



The Valuable Woods in the Valley of the Amazons. 



How to meet the growing demand for timber is a ques- 

 tion of considerable interest and importance. It rises to 

 the dignity of a national topic. While the population of 

 the United States increases in a decade thirty -five per 

 cent., tlie increase of the consumption of wood is sixty- 

 three per cent. England imports wood to the value of 

 $60,000,000, or three times as much as her home produce. 

 The temperate zones supply most of the woods of con- 

 struction, while nearly all the ornamental woods come 

 from tropical countries. No hard timber is found in the 

 United States west of the one hundredth meridian, and 

 all tlie great forests of South America are cisandine. 



No spot on the globe contains so much vegetable mat- 

 ter as the valley of the Amazons. In it we may draw a 

 circle a thousand miles in diameter, which will include an 

 evergreen forest,* broken only by the i-ivers and a few 

 grassy camjyos. There is a most bewildei-ing diversity of 

 grand and beautiful trees — a wild, unconquered race of 

 vegetable giants — draped, festooned, corded, matted, and 

 ribboned with climbing and creeping plants, woody and 

 succulent, in endless variety. The densest portion of this 



* In Central Brazil, most of the trees lose their leaves in the cool dry sea- 

 son, between June and September. It is a singular fact that the advancing 

 season does not follow the sun ; but while the sun is coming down from the 

 northern altitudes, the Purus, e.g.^ is earlier than the Amazons, and the Am- 

 azons than the Napo. The Assa'i ripens on the Purus a month or two earlier 

 than on the main river. On the Marauon, the rainy season is a month later 

 than on the Solimoens. 



