ST. THOMAS', St. LIES 36 miles east of Porto Rico, in latitude 18° 20′ N., and longitude 650 W. The surface is mountainous, and the soil less fertile than St. Croix. Sugar and cotton are the principal staples. St. Thomas has long been, and continues to be, one of the chief emporiums in the West Indies. It owes its distinction partly to its convenient situation, partly to its spacious and safe harbor at St. Thomas, on the south side of the island, and partly, and principally, to the moderation of the duties imposed on commerce. Thomas has in consequence become as it were a depôt for the supply of the neighboring islands, goods being sent to it until opportunity offers for conveying them to their ultimate destination. The great articles of importation are European manufactured goods, but chiefly from England, and provisions, lumber, &c., from the United States. The first-cost value of imports in 1840 amounted to $4,997,000, and the ships and tonnage inward to 368, and 58,132. In the same year the colonial arrivals were 1,563 vessels of 48,624 tons, besides a great number of vessels neither landing nor loading goods, being in that case free from port charges. ST. JOHN'S, Six miles east of St. Thomas, contains about 40 square miles. The soil produces sugar, coffee, tobacco, &c. The Moravian Brethren have missions in all these islands. In describing the West Indies, a number of small islands have necessarily been omitted. These, however, are found on any good map, and their position and proximity to the larger islands will in general indicate to what nation they belong. The number of these cannot be ascertained, but it is Supposed that they may have an aggregate area of 600 or 700 square miles, and a population of 10,000. They have no commercial importance, except as dangers to be avoided by the mariner. WEST INDIA MAIL STEAMERS. AMONG the manifold advantages enjoyed by the West Indies, the British ocean mail-system is not the least. The mails from England are made up on the 2d and 17th of every month, and are conveyed to Southampton, from which they are transferred to one of the splendid steamships belonging to the "Royal Mail Steam-packet Company." This company has 15 vessels of 18,569 tons, 5,967 horse power, and 1,227 men, and two sailing vessels, 238 tons, and 30 men. They contract with the government to carry the mails between England and the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, from Southampton, twice a month, for £240,000 per annum, they finding 11 ocean steamers of 400 horse power, and 4 for the colonies of 200 horse power each. A West India mail steamer is capable of carrying about 80 passengers, and is fitted up in an elegant style. After leaving Southampton, the vessels proceed to Funchal, or Madeira, whence they sail for Barbadoes, and thence to Grenada; the entire distance from Southampton to Grenada, being 4,037 nautical miles, is performed in about 23 days. Every fortnight one of the colonial steamers starts from Barbadoes for Tobago, and Demerara, in Guayana, where she stops for a week, and then returns with homemails for Tobago, Grenada, and Barbadoes. From Grenada one also starts every fortnight for Trinidad, where she remains nine days and then returns to Grenada. One also starts every fortnight from Grenada with the outmails for St. Vincent's, St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Guadaloupe, Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Christopher's, Tortola, St. Thomas, and Porto Rico; after which she returns to St. Thomas, for the purpose of procuring coal, calling at each island on her way back to Grenada. A steam-packet also starts monthly for Havanna, Vera Cruz, and Tampico, touching at Ship Island, below New-Orleans, whence mails for the United States are despatched, and the return-mails received. At Vera Cruz large shipments of specie and bullion are received, sometimes amounting to $2,500,000, which are transported from the mines in the interior for Great Britain. The vessels then proceed to Nassau and Bermuda, and then return to Southampton, calling once a month at New-York, staying only long enough to receive the mails. Another steamer starts every month from St. Thomas with the out as well as the home-mails, for Bermuda, and then proceeds to Nassau, Havanna, and Jamaica. Another steam-packet starts monthly from St. Thomas, with all the collected home-mails, proceeding by way of Fayal to Southampton. One steam-packet starts monthly from Grenada, with the out-mails for La Guayra and Porto Cabello, remains there for the period of two days, and returns to La Guayra, and thence to St. Thomas and Grenada. One steampacket likewise starts monthly from Jamaica, with the out-mails for Santa Marta, Cartagena, Chagres, and St. Juan de Nicaragua; she then returns to Jamaica, with mails for England. Finally, another steam-packet starts monthly from Havanna for Balize and Honduras, and after stopping a few days, she returns to Havanna. This judicious system of communication by steam, between Great Britain and the West Indies, furnishes an expeditious and safe channel of trade and commerce between them, and tends to keep alive the mutual interests between the colonies, and also that between the colonies and the mother country. The United States mail service with these countries is yet in its infancy, but a company has been formed in New-York, and already several vessels are built and in progress, for the purpose of conveying by steam the mails destined for the Pacific via Panama, calling at several of the most important West India Islands. The mails will be transported over the Isthmus, and despatched from Panama to the ports of California and Oregon, and the return mails having been collected, these vessels will return by the same route. These arrangements, however, are only the commencement of a system which, in the course of time, will be extended, and from the superior facilities enjoyed by the United States, will probably soon outstrip in efficiency and value the present magnificent provisions in mail-transportation, made by the English. The New-Orleans line of steamers from NewYork call at Havanna and Balize to deliver and receive the mails. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH AMERICA. We now enter upon the description of the richest and most fertile, the most picturesque, and, excepting Africa, the most extensive peninsula of the world. South America is situated between the parallels of 11° 20′ W. and 56° 30′ S. latitude, and between the meridians of 350 and 830 W. longitude. According to geographical writers, this vast continent contains a surface area of 6,500,000 square miles: its greatest length is 4,550, and its greatest breadth 3,200 miles. Of this extent about three-fourths lie between the tropics, and the remainder in the southern temperate zone. South America is bounded north by the Caribbean Sea, and is connected with North America by the narrow Isthmus of Darien. On the east is the Atlantic; on the south the Antarctic, and on the west the Pacific Oceans. A number of cold and barren islands lie south of Cape Horn, the furthest extremity of the lands, which are entirely useless, and destined ever to remain in their primeval state of desolation and solitude. From the configuration of its surface, South America may be divided into five distinct regions, each having widely-marked peculiarities, and differing essentially in their physical aspect and scenery: First. The low country skirting the Pacific coast, from 50 to 150 miles in breadth and 4,000 miles in length, and of which the two extremes are fertile, gradually diminishing in that respect as they approach the centre, which is a desert waste, incapable of supporting animal life or producing the most stunted shrub or germ of vegetation. Second. The Basin of the Orinoco, surrounded almost by lofty mountains, and forming a region of extensive plains, either destitute of wood or merely studded with brush-wood and decrepid trees; but covered with abundance of coarse long grass, in which lizards and serpents lie in a state of inactivity or torpor. Third. The Basin of the Amazon, a vast plain, embracing a surface of 2,000,000 square miles, and possessing a rich soil and humid climate. It is covered all over with dense forests, harboring a great variety of wild beasts, and is thinly inhabited by tribes of savage Indians, who subsist on the produce of the chase and by fishing. Fourth. The great southern plain, watered by the tributaries of the Rio de la Plata. Open pampas, or plains, occupy the greater portion of this region, which is dry, and in some parts barren, but in general is covered with strong weeds and grass, which furnish subsistence to prodigious herds of cattle, and afford shelter to a few wild animals of various species; and Fifth. The high country of Brazil, eastward of the Parana, Paraguay and Madeira, which presents a succession of ridges and vallies on the Atantic thickly covered with wood, and in the west opens into vast plains and pasture lands, on which innumerable droves find ample subsistence. The MOUNTAINS OF SOUTH AMERICA are of vast height, and cover a great part of the eastern and western portions of the continent. The CORDILLERAS of the Andes, or great western chain, commencing at the Straits of Magellan, on the southern extremity of the peninsula, run in a northerly direction to the Isthmus of Darien, and are generally parallel to the Pacific Ocean, at a distance of from 50 to 150 miles. Their aspect, in different parts of their course, is as various as abrupt-sometimes consisting of one entire mass, while at others two or three distinct ridges appear separated by longitudinal vallies. In Chili, the Andes are broad, and consist of a great number of mountains, all of prodigious height, and appearing to be chained to each other. In Peru, they divide into three ridges, which continue divided until within a few degrees from the equator, when they unite into a single chain. They separate again in Equador into two distinct chains, which enclose between them a spacious valley, elevated 9,000 feet above the level of the ocean. Further north, about the second parallel of north latitude, the eastern chain is subdivided into two, and in this manner the Andes enter New-Grenada, dividing its surface into three separate elevations; the western is the proper Andes, and passes towards but not into North America, over the Isthmus of Darien; the eastern, called the chain of Colombia, pursues a north-easterly course, and, winding along the shores of the Caribbean Sea, terminates on the Gulf of Paria, opposite the Island of Trinidad; the middle range runs north between the rivers Magdalena and Cauca. The most elevated part of the Andes is the double ridge in Equador, which abounds with colossal summits, the highest of which, the celebrated Nevado de Sorato, rises to 25,420 feet above the level of the sea. In Chili, Peru and Equador, the loftiest peaks form one row of volcanoes, many of which are in a state of constant eruption. The EASTERN RANGE OF SOUTH AMERICAN MOUNTAINS, Sometimes termed the Brazilian Andes, runs along the coast of Brazil from about 120 to 320 south latitude. In addition to what is here called the eastern and western ranges of South American mountains, some other ridges deserve to be mentioned. The colossal trunk of the Andes sends off several branches towards the east, and besides that above noticed, which runs along the northern coast of South America, there is another which leaves the main ridge between the third and sixth degrees of south latitude. A third lateral branch makes a semicircular sweep between fifteen and twenty degrees of south latitude, and appears to connect the main body of the Andes with the mountains of Brazil and Paraguay, supplying the streams that feed the mighty Amazon on the one hand, and the sea-like Plata on the other. The particular direction, elevation, and structure of this range, however, are yet but imperfectly known. The New World is scarcely more distinguished from the other regions of the globe by its position and magnitude, than by the majesty of its physical features. Its vast mountains, which rear their stupendous bulks above the clouds-its wide-stretching plateaux-its almost immeasurable savannas, and its mighty rivers, which roll their immense floods across these spacious plains, are all distinguishing traits of the western world. Placed amidst the summits of the Andes, the adventurous traveller seems as if surrounded with the fragments of a world destroyed, or with the materials out of which another might be constructed. There "desolation seems at perpetual strife with nature for the mastery, and vegetation lives as if in defiance of sterility." This magnificent and awfully impressive scenery of the central Andes, however, differs in several respects from that of other Alpine regions in higher latitudes. It is deficient in some of those features which not only augment its beauty and sublimity, but add majesty to horror. Glaciers, which, amidst the Alpine districts of Europe, frequently resemble a tumultuous sea suddenly congealed by the power of frost, as well as the terrible avalanches, which prove so destructive in these latitudes, are unknown in the torrid zone. But these mountains are noted for their immense chasms and cataracts. The formation of the Andes is likewise different from that of the Alps of Europe. One of the most singular circumstances in this respect is the enormous thickness and height of what geologists call the secondary formations. Baron Humboldt asserts that beds of coal have been found in the neighborhood of Santa Fé, at an elevation of 8,650 feet above the level of the sea; and even at the height of 14,700 feet, near Huanuco. The plains of Bogota, which are about 9,000 feet above the surface of the ocean, are covered with sand-stone, gypsum, shell-limestone, and in some places rock-salt. Fossil shells have been found in the Pyrenees at the height of 11,700 feet, but in Peru at 12,800 in one place, and at 14,120 in another, where they were also accompanied with sand-stone. The basalt of Pichincha, near the city of Quito, has an elevation of 15,500, while granite, which crowns the loftiest mountains of Europe, is not found higher than 11,500 feet in the Andes, and is scarcely known in the republics either of Equador or Peru. The snow-clad summits of Sorato, Chimborazo, and the other highest peaks, consist entirely of porphyry, which there constitutes a mass of 10,000 or 12,000 feet in thickness; together with an enormous body of quartz of 9,500 feet thick. The Andes of Chili differ in their composition from the other parts of the chain; for it is in the cordillera of this part that vast blocks of crystal are found, capable of being formed into columns six or seven feet in length. The following table is intended to exhibit the localities of the several mineralogical products of South America: though, of course, only designed as a general resumé, it will be advantageous in assisting the memory in reviewing the mineral formations on this continent: DIAMONDS... Brazil (Minas-Geraes, &c.) OTHER PRECIOUS STONES... Brazil (Minas-Geraes, &c.; New-Grenada, (Cundinamarca, GOLD... SILVER... TIN...... MERCURY.. COPPER.. LEAD.. IRON. COAL.. SALT-PETRE.. &c.;) Chili; and Peru (passim.) New-Grenada (San Juan, Cauca, Choco, &c. ;) Equador; Brazil, (Minas-Geraes, Goyas and Matto-Grasso) and the ..Bolivia Peru; Chili; and Argentine Republic (passim.) .Peru (Huancavelica, mines of Santa Barbara.) .. Brazil (Minas-Geraes, St. Paul's, &c. ;) Peru. .Peru; Chili, and several other states. .Argentine Republic; Brazil, (Rio Grande do Norte, Para, &c. ;) Peru (abundant.) |