546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



winch tlie water in a few hours washed out into a navigable 

 channel. 



At about three hundred miles above the mouth of the Ber- 

 mejo the author entered the Teuco, or the channel opened by the 

 erratic waters of that river when they departed from their origi- 

 nal bed. In many places along the old bed successive annual 

 floods have covered with rich deposits the low-lying lands, leav- 

 ing the tops of large trees peering above the surface. It would 

 be impossible for the least sentimental n<$t to admire and feel the 

 influence of those rich woods, clothed in perpetual verdure, the 

 trees entwined by the Paraguay jasmine, with its delicate white 

 and blue flowers, whose fragrance is perceived as you run along 

 the banks, and covered with other climbers, parasites, and orchids 

 in great variety. There is a certain richness of growth in these 

 wilds, filled with the native pineapple, which is unlike the rank- 

 ness of the Brazilian tropical vegetation, so suggestive of jungle 

 fevers. A Mr. Plaisant, in 1854, by direction of the Minister of 

 Commerce of France, made an analysis of the woods of Paraguay, 

 which practically may be said to be identical with those of the 

 Chaco, and he concluded that they might be advantageously 

 employed to take the place of those used in Europe for cabinet 

 work. Many of them are certainly very beautiful; the tatane 

 (Porliera hygrometrica) compares favorably with the bird's-eye 

 maple ; the palo rosa, the Guayacan Cesalpinea melanocarpa, a 

 variety of Lapacfws, the urundey, curupay, and cumpaynd, the 

 quebracho, with a hundred others, all of hard, indestructible 

 wood, when used in the earth or water, and which would hold 

 their own with any of the woods of Europe or Asia. Mr. Plaisant 

 classified thirty-nine species of superior quality, useful for naval 

 construction and cabinet work, exclusive of a great number which 

 had special applications for medical and domestic use. Most of 

 the trees I have enumerated are actually used in Argentina in 

 great quantities for ship-building, fencing, telegraph-lines, and 

 railway sleepers. The three species of algarroba produce the long 

 locust-pod, a staple article of food with the Chaco Indians, who 

 pound it up and make it into a very sustaining bread. They also 

 brew from it an intoxicating beverage, under the influence of 

 which they become dangerous. The pod is very fattening food 

 for cattle and horses, having a great percentage of saccharine 

 matter. The presence of the algarroba is an indication of high 

 land not subject to overflow. The alba species is employed exten- 

 sively in the manufacture of hubs and furniture ; its bark is good 

 for tanning purposes, and a majority of the window and door 

 frames of the older houses of Buenos Ayres are made of it. The 

 "palo santo," holy wood, or lignum vitse, is seen in quantities 

 north of the twenty-sixth parallel. Its wood, which is extensively 



