est in the northern hemisphere, from barley, furs, and peltries, down to the list of tropical productions.

The Amazon, on the other hand, runs east, and its navigable tributaries, flowing both from the north and the south, push the intertropical varieties from field and forest far down towards the circle of Capricorn, in the other hemisphere.

The Mississippi has but reached the sugar-producing latitude, where it expands out upon the Gulf of Mexico. The Amazon takes up the list where the Mississippi leaves it, and commencing with sugar, it yields in great profusion, and of fine quality, coffee, cochineal, cocoa, and cotton, hemp, and indigo, India-rubber, wax, gums, drugs, and resins. With cabinet woods and dye-stuffs of great beauty and of infinite variety, this splendid river-basin completes the commercial round by the addition to the above list of many other articles from the field, the forest, and the mine, of rare value or great worth. In the commercial circle these two river-basins are the supplements of each other-what one lacks, that the other has to spare.

The foundations of commerce rest upon diversity of climate; for without diversity of climate there can be no diversity of productions, and consequently no variety of produce, which begets barter, and thus gives rise to commerce.

The continent of Europe, extending from the Polar Basin, reaches no further to the south than the parallel of 36 deg. north; consequently none of the climates due any of the parallels between 36 deg. north and the equator are to be found in Europe; and if not the climates, certainly not the productions.

Now, it is a fact in physical geography that is worthy of remark in this connexion: where the continent of Europe ends, at that degree of latitude begin the river basins of India, which, extending from the parallel of 36 de. north far down into the intertropical regions of this hemisphere, have enriched with their produce and their commerce every nation of Europe that has ever ventured abroad with her merchantmen in search of it. And why? Simply because the latitudes and the climates, and consequently the productions of India, were not to be found in Europe; and the Europeans wanting them, sent to India for them. In like manner the people of India wanted the productions of Europe. Hence barter and the foundation of all commerce

may be referred to difference of latitude and climate.

But to exchange the produce and the merchandise of the north frigid and north temperate for the north torrid zone, the European had to encounter a tedious and dangerous navigation, and he had withal to compass such a distance that the time taken for his vessel to go and to come once occupied the full year.

On the other hand, we have at our very doors this great valley of the Amazon, with all, and more than all, the climates and soils and agricultural capabilities of India twice told.

The distance, under modern improvements of navigation, from our southern ports to the mouth of the Amazon, is not as many days as India used to be in months from Europe.

The valley of the Mississippi extends, according to the computation of physical geographers, over an area of 982,000 square miles; that of the Amazon and its confluents, with the Orinoco as one of them, em

braces that vast area more than twice over. The great Amazoinan valley is said by the same authority to cover an area of upwards of two millions of square miles in extent.

The Mississippi river is computed to afford a littoral navigation of 15,000 miles in length; some put it down as high as 20,000. But the Amazon and its majestic tributaries wind through an inland navigation of such an extent that, if stretched out in one line, its length would be enough to encircle the earth three times. It is set down as high as 80,000 miles. The Amazon is said to be navigable for vessels of the largest class up to the foot of the Andes. The Pennsylvania 74 may ascend that high.

And so traversed with navigable streams and water-courses is the great Atlantic slope of South America, that there are in it no less than 1,500 miles of "furos," or natural canals, through which it is practicable for vessels to cross from one river over into another.

Were this valley settled upon and subdued to cultivation, "the Indies," in a commercial sense, would thereby be lifted up and placed at our doors, for all the productions of the East flourish there; and so jealous and afraid of such a result was Portugal, in her day, of East India possessions and commerce, that by a royal ordinance it became unlawful to cultivate in the great Amazon basin a single drug, spice, or plant of East India growth or production.

The republics of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia have large and rich provinces upon the head navigable waters of the Amazon, so that the free navigation of that river, or an exchange with Brazil, and the other powers conc rned, of the free navigation of the Mississippi for that of the Amazon and its tributaries, would at once, and without more ado, give rise to considerable commerce. As to its prospective value and importance it is useless to speculate.

The navigation of the Amazon would divert from the Pacific coasts of those republics a valuable portion of that trade which now goes around Cape Horn, and reaches this Amazonian water-shed by transportation on the backs of sheep and asses across the summits of the Andes.

A remarkable feature in the profile of the South American coastline is its want of articulation.

The shore-line of that part of the world is almost as stiff and rigid as the three sides of a right-angled triangle, which it resembles. It is without any considerable indentations; and nowhere among the southern continents do we find those jutting promontories and peninsulas, or those encircling arms and gulfs of the sea, which in the northern hemisphere so increase the length of shore-line, and give that articulation to the continental profiles which enables ships, as in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, about the peninsulas of India, and the northern seas of Europe, to sail up into the interior, and penetrate with commerce the very heart of countries that, but for such indentation of shore-line, would be thousands of miles from the sea and its commerce.

At best, trading vessels by sea can but fringe with commerce the outskirts of South America; for its shore-line, as already mentioned, is without indentation. As yet the heart of that country has never been touched; and unless its magnificent rivers and majestic sheets of

fresh water be opened to navigation, the commercial enterprise of the world never can reach the great interior of South America. Naturally the whole of that continent, except the narrow strip between the summit of the Andes and the Pacific ocean, slopes down to the Atlantic. It is tributary to the Atlantic, and into the Atlantic it is destined to pour its commerce. The country drained by the Amazon and the La Plata embraces an area larger than the continent of Europe. The navigation of those streams would divert a large portion of the Cape Horn trade, and throw it at our feet; for we perceive, from the statements already made, that, on account of the winds and currents of the sea, the mouth of the Amazon is in close physical connexion with our southern ports-and to make that connexion one of business, profit, and friendship, we have but to devise a plan which, by encouraging commerce and navigation there, shall, with the concurrence of the other powers concerned, give an impulse also to the settlement of that valley, and secure to our merchants the right of trade up and down that river on fair and liberal terms.

Bearing in mind, therefore, all these things, and taking into consideration the geographical position of that river basin, and our climates with regard to its outlet-considering its climates, its soils, its resources and its capabilities; that the foundations of its prosperity are to rest on a liberal commercial policy, and that its industrial pursuits must receive a tone, character and direction from those who conduct that commerce-considering that it is the policy of the United States to cultivate the relations of peace with all nations through the bonds of mutual interests and good will-considering, also, that this river-basin is for the most part a wilderness, and that it is therefore, like wax, to receive impression from commerce-considering, too, that the laws of Brazil touching immigration into that valley are said to be of the most liberal character-considering, moreover, the toleration of those laws and the classes of people who are already there;-considering all these things, let it be repeated, your memorialist is deeply impressed with the importance of the subject. He beholds in it a question of immense magnitude. The question of navigation and commerce with the Amazon and up the Amazon-the greatest river and the most fertile river-basin in the world-is the greatest commercial question of the day.

The bearing and the influences of such a question upon the future well-being and prosperity of this country cannot, for their scope and extent, be taken in, unless by the most expanded view of the most farsighted statesman-ship.

Your memorialist, therefore, prays for such constitutional and rightful legislation on the part of your honorable bodies as shall tend to encourage commerce and navigation with that magnificent water-shed. Among the collateral results incident to a judicious course of legislation now upon such a subject, may be counted, sooner or later, a tide of immigration there, followed by settlement and tillage, which in turn will lead to the development of the boundless commercial resources of that unparalleled region, and to the establisment of those business. ties, social relations and happy connexions which active commerce and frequent intercourse never fail to beget between nations.

Imagine an immigrant-a poor laboring man. he may be-to arriv

from the interior of Europe, as a settler in the valley of the Amazon. Where he was, his labor could but support himself in the most frugal manner, and he was then no customer of ours. But in his new home, where, with a teeming soil and fine climate responding to his husbandry, and where the labor of one day in seven is said to be enough to crown his board with plenty, he works with his wonted diligence, and out of his abundance he has wherewithal of his own producecoffee it may be, or drugs, or spices, or gums, or cocoa, or rice, or tobacco, or some other of the great staples of that valley; but be what it may, he has enough to give largely in exchange with us for all the manufactured articles, whether of fancy, necessity, or luxury, that he craves the most. In the long list of what the immigrant there will require of us, may be included that great assortment of goods known as "Yankee notions;" also, pickled beef and pork, hams and flour, butter, lard and the like; for the climate of the Amazon is not favorable to the production and stowage of any of those things. It is particularly unfavorable to the curing of meats and the grinding of flour; it is also unfavorable for all in-door occupations. And in the settling up of the valley of the Amazon, considering that New York and Boston are but eighteen or twenty days under canvass from the mouth of that river-considering that the winds are fair for going and free for coming, and that the Atlantic ports of the United States are the only market places for which the winds are thus propitious-eonsidering all the physical advantages which we thus enjoy, and regarding this immigrant as the type of a class-it may be expected, whenever the tide of immigration, guided and sustained by American enterprise and energy shall begin to set into that valley, that New York and Boston, with the manufacturing States, will have to supply those people with every article of the loom or the shop, from the axe and the hoe up to gala dresses and river stcamers.

The man, therefore, who in his native Europe could not buy a cent's worth of American produce, simply by being transferred as a settler in the valley of the Amazon becomes at once a producer, and one of the best customers to the American merchants, that it is possible for a commercial people to have; and Europe is ready, as soon as American commerce, backed by American energy, shall give the world tangible evidence of the riches and resources of that country, to pour forth its hordes into it.

Not only so would its settlement enrich us, but in other respects also it would add to our national greatness and prosperity; for it may be set down as an axiom in political economy, as true as is the Catholic proposition of geometry, that in order that communities of men may forsake the land, take to the sea, use it and become seamen, it must be easier to earn a living at sea than on the land belonging to such communities.

Hence we find the severe climates and barren soils of the North sending forth their young men in crowds down to the sea for a living; but never will men, and never have men been known to forsake cheap lands, rich soils and fine climates for the sea life.

The valley of the Kennebeck and the Merrimack, and the shores of Cape Cod, may send forth of their yeomanry to make sailors of; but we have never yet heard af young men, in any considerable num

bers, forsaking their homes in the teeming valley of the Mississippi, for the dangers, the hardships and the scanty fare of the common sail

or at sea.

And neither will the immigrant or his son forsake the mild climate and kind soil of the Amazon for the sea. American merchants, American ships and Ameriean sailors will therefore be the chief competitors for the fetching and the carrying of all that trade to which, in process of time, two or three hundred millions of people in the valley of the Amazon, and which it is capable of sustaining, will give rise. The commercial future of that valley is the most magnificent in the world.

It belongs mostly to Brazil, and our trade with Brazil is already greater than it is with any other country whatever, excepting only England and France.

From the United States to Rio, the voyage is long and uncertain, and our merchants are falling into the habit of conducting their Brazilian correspondence through England. There is a monthly line of steamers thence to Rio; its time of going is 29 or 30 days; the average sailing passage from New York to Rio is from 40 to 50 days. Hence it is more convenient for the business man to send his letters via England.

Now, there is a line of steamers from Para, at the mouth of the Amazon to Rio. A line from Norfolk to Para, equalling in speed the Collins line to Liverpool, would make the passage in eight or ten days. At the same rate the distance thence to Rio might be accomplished in another week or ten days, thus bringing hat great commercial mar` of South America within twenty instead of forty days of our business

men.

All the lines of ocean mail steamers that have yet been directly encouraged by the United States government on the waters of the Atlantic have their terminus in New York.

No direct encouragement to steamship enterprise has been given by the government to any port south of New York.

Your memorialist is opposed to centralization, and therefore for this, as well as for other reasons, prays that Norfolk or Charleston, or some other southern Atlantic port, may be made the terminus of a line of United States mail steamships to Para, touching at Porto Rico and such other West India islands as may be agreed upon.

Another reason why the preference in this enterprise should be given to a southern port, is in the distance, for the southern ports are nearer than those of the North to the mouth of the Amazon. And to ask that these steamers should pass by southern ports with South American correspondence, to be landed at the north and sent back through the mails to the South, would seem both unfair and unreasonable to your memorialist.

Moreover, he has ventured to specify only one of a series of measures which it may be necessary to adopt, in order to develop, for the benefit of American navigation, the great commercial wealth of the Amazon. He contents himself with specifying this one, because, in his judgment, it is highly expedient and of pressing importance. And, as in duty bound, your memorialist will every pray, &c. M. F. MAURY.