November 28, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



489 



The trip from Macapa was by a small sail- 

 boat clown the Amazon to the ocean, and 

 thence up the Araguary. Our departure was 

 so arranged that we could reach that part of 

 the region disturbed by the pororoca exactly 

 at the time when there would be the least prob- 

 ability of its being met with ; that is, at the 

 time of the neap-tides. The voyage down 

 the river was in the face of the wind, and it was 

 only five days after leaving Macapa that we 

 put into an igarape on the Island of Porqui- 

 nhos to wait for the turning of the tide. I had 

 already seen islands said to have been half 

 washed awa}', and others built 

 up, b} T the pororoca; and I had 

 seen upon the shores the evi- 

 dences of its destructive power 

 in carrying away forests, and 

 cutting away banks : but it was 

 on this island that I was first 

 able to see some of its effects 

 near at hand, and at m} T leisure. 

 After having seen so much, I 

 was onty the more anxious to 

 see the porordca itself; but my 

 suggestions in regard to it were 

 answered by an ominous silence 

 on the part of the director, and 

 my requests b}' additional ex- 

 pressions of horror. 



As I shortly afterwards met 

 and conversed with a man who 

 had seen the porordca, I shall 

 first give his description of it, 

 and then speak of its effects as 

 observed by myself. This man 

 was a soldier in the Brazilian 

 army, and, on the occasion re- 

 ferred to, was going with a few 

 other soldiers from the colony 

 to Macapa in a small open boat. 

 Arriving at the mouth of the 

 Araguary, they went down with the tide, and 

 anchored just inside the bar which crosses the 

 mouth of this stream, to await the turning of 

 the tide, which would enable them to pass 

 the shallows, and then carry them up the 

 Amazon. Shortly after the tide had stopped 

 running out, they saw something coming to- 

 ward them from the ocean in a long white line, 

 which grew bigger and whiter as it approached. 

 Then there was a sound like the rumbling of 

 distant thunder, which grew louder and louder 

 as the white line came nearer, until it seemed 

 as if the whole ocean had risen up, and was 

 coming, charging and thundering down on 

 them, boiling over the edge of this pile of 

 water like an endless cataract, from four to 



seven metres high, that spread out across the 

 whole eastern horizon. This was the poro- 

 roca! When the}' saw it coming, the crew 

 became utterly demoralized, and fell to crying 

 and praying in the bottom of the boat, expect- 

 ing that it would certainly be clashed to pieces, 

 and they themselves drowned. The pilot; 

 however, had the presence of mind to heave 

 anchor before the wall of waters struck them : 

 and, when it did strike, they were first pitched 

 violently forward, and then lifted, and left roll- 

 ing and tossing like a cork on the sea it left 

 behind, the boat nearry filled with water. But 



MOUTH OF THE AMAZON. SKETCH-MAP OF THE FART PRINCIPALLY AFFECTED 

 BY THE POROR6cA, BY J. C. BRANNER. 



their trouble was not yet ended ; for, before they 

 had emptied the boat, two other such seas 

 came down on them at short intervals, tossing 

 them in the same manner, and finally leaving 

 them within a stone's throw of the river-bank, 

 where another such wave would have dashed 

 them upon the shore. They had been an- 

 chored near the middle of the stream before 

 the waves struck them, and the stream at this 

 place is several miles wide. 



But no description of this disturbance of the 

 water can impress one so vividly as the signs 

 of devastation seen upon the land. The silent 

 story of the uprooted trees that lie matted 



and tangled and twisted together 



tlu 



, &r _ upon me 

 shore, sometimes half buried in the sand, as 



