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CLIMATE OF 
must therefore be rising, and would in time become 
permanently elevated above the highest rise of the river. 
This however would take a very long time, for as the 
banks rose, the river, unable to spread its waters over 
the adjoining country, would swell higher, and flow 
more rapidly than before, and so overflow a country 
elevated above the level of its former inundations. 
The complete history of these changes, — the periods 
of elevation and of repose, the time when the dividing 
ridges first rose above the waters, and the comparative 
antiquity of the tributary streams, — cannot be ascertained 
till the country has been more thoroughly explored, and 
the organic remains, which must doubtless exist, be 
brought forward, to give us more accurate information 
respecting the birth and growth of the Amazon. 
CLIMATE. 
The climate of the Amazon valley seems remarkable 
for uniformity of temperature, and for a regular supply 
of moisture. There are, in most parts of it, six months' 
wet, and six months' dry season, neither of which are so 
severe as in some other tropical countries. From June 
to December is the dry, and from January to May the 
wet season. In the dry season there are a few occa- 
sional rains, especially about All Saints day, in Novem- 
ber ; and during the wet season there are intervals of 
fine weather, and often bright mornings, and many days 
of gentle misty rain. 
This is the general character of the climate over the 
whole of the main stream of the Amazon and its' im- 
