1 .' 
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During January and the early part of February Alexander Wetmore was 
the guest of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Phelps, Jr., of Caracas, Venezuela, 
on an expedition in the Territory of Amazonas, southern Venezuela, The 
party, which included the geologists Dr. Guillermo Zuloaga of the Creole 
Petroleum Company and Dr. C. D. Reynolds of the Orinoco Milling Company, 
and Dr. James H. Kanpton, Agricultural Attachd at the American Embassy, 
left Caracas on the morning of January 2 by Catalina amphibian plane, and 
flew to Esmeralda on the Upper Orinoco. Landing was made on the savanna 
and the party, transferring to two launches (falcas), proceeded to the 
head of 
about one-third of the 
the C&fl© Casicuiare, the stream that,tak&y 
water from the Orinoco at this point atwL flows southward, augmented by 
nia/one of the pirin 
several major tributaries, to join the Rio Guainia 
incipal 
affluents of the Amazon, thus connecting the two great river systems of 
northern South America. On January 5 the party entered the Rio Pacimoni 
from the Casiquiare and three days later came into a branch of this stream 
known as the Rio Yatda. Presently the forest closed in as the stream 
narrowed and it was necessary to transfer to canoes (curiaras) and so to 
continue through channels that wound through areas where the stream banks 
were flooded. 
A party of botanists under Dr. Bassett Maguire of the New York Botanical 
Garden had preceded, but in spite of this much time was lost in cutting 
through fallen trees, and in locating the proper channels. A base camp 
at the head of navigation was readied on January 15, and Wetmore and Kemp ton 
remained here for work in the lowland forest while the rest of the party 
continued with porters to join the botanists on Cerro de la Neblina, a 
7000 foot mountain hitherto unknovn, near the Brazilian frontier. January 
