198 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



reaches the side of the steamer, a line of men is formed 

 some eight or ten in number, and the wood is passed 

 from hand to hand, log by log, each log counted as it 

 arrives. Mr. Agassiz timed them this morning, and found 

 that they averaged about seven logs a minute. Under 

 these circumstances, one can understand that stopping to 

 wood is a long affair. Since we left Coari we have been 

 3oasting along close to the land, the continental shoie, 

 and not that of an island. The islands are so large and 

 numerous in the Amazons, that often when we believe our- 

 selves between the northern and southern margins of the 

 river, we are in fact between island shores. We have fol- 

 lowed the drift almost constantly to-day, — the same red 

 drift with which we have become so familiar in South 

 America. Sometimes it rises in cliffs and banks above 

 the mud deposit, sometimes it crops out through the mud, 

 occasionally mingling with it and partially stratified, and in 

 one locality it overlaid a gray rock in place, the nature of 

 which Mr. Agassiz could not determine, but which was 

 distinctly stratified and slightly tilted. The drift is cer- 

 tainly more conspicuous as we ascend the river ; is this 

 because we approach its source, or because the nature 

 of the vegetation allows us to see more of the soil ? 

 Since we left Manaos the forest has been less luxuriant; 

 it is lower on the Solimoens than on the Amazons, more 

 ragged and more open. The palms are also less numerous 

 than hitherto, but there is a tree here which rivals them in 

 dignity. Its fiat dome, rounded but not conical, towers 

 above the forest, and, when seen from a distance, has an 

 almost architectural character, so regular is its form. This 

 majestic tree, called the Sumaumeira (Eriodendron Su- 

 mauma), is one of the few trees in this climate which shed 



