Duties of the Officers and Directors-Benefits of the Company. 449

own ships, boats or vessels, buy and sell produce and manufactures at home and abroad on commission, receive and pay out deposits, deal in foreign and domestic exchange generally, make advances on produce, manufactures and merchandise, and to increase their capital stock, if necessary, to three millions

of dollars.

For the protection of the community against abuses, the officers and directors are required to make bonds and take suitable oaths for the faithful perform ance of their duties; make annual reports showing who are the stockholders, the amount of each one's shares, and the true condition of the company. The bill also enables the governor to appoint commissioners to examine the entire busi

ness of the company, and report thereon publicly. If the company abuses its powers, the legislature can annul their charter.

Well organized, with competent agencies at different foreign and domestic points of trade, they would not only be highly useful to the mercantile and sales, purchases and exchanges, but planting community in making their could also, to great advantage, make purchases at home and abroad of materials or machinery for our rail-road and manufacturing companies.*

There were some valuable tables annexed to

this paper, which are omitted. The reader can reference to the pages of the Review and of the obtain all the material embraced in them by Industrial Resources.-[ED.

ART. V.-VALLEY OF THE AMAZON.

[THE increasing interest which attaches to everything that relates to the resources of several of the South American states, induces us to publish, in extenso, the valuable contributions of Lieut. Maury, made during last winter, and in part copied into some of our numbers. The papers are worthy of study and reflection, and will be continued in our next number. With those we have already published, they present the subject complete in almost every aspect.]

THE AMAZON COUNTRY, ITS CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS-THE LA PLATA THE MISSISSIPPI OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE-RIVER BASINS COMPARED-COMMERCE OF THE LA PLATA, ITS VALUE-PRODUCTIONS-CANAL BETWEEN THE WATERS OF THE LA PLATA AND THE AMAZON THE PARAGUAY COUNTRY-CATTLE RAISING-GOLD AND DIAMONDS-AN IMMENSE DRUG PLANTATION-THE RICHES OF THE VEGETABLE EXCEED THOSE OF THE MINERAL KINGDOM-GOLD WASHING IN THE STREETS-IMMENSE YIELD OF DIAMONDS-MULE TRANSPORTATION A COMMERCIAL ANOMALY-COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE LA PLATA AND THE AMAZON-JAPANESE POLICY OF BRAZIL-EXPLORATION OF THE AMAZON BY OFFICERS OF THE U. S. NAVY-PILCOMAYO-" CITY OF SILVER"-MAGNIFICENT VIEW OF THE PRODUCTIONS OF TROPICAL, TEMPERATE, AND FRIGID ZONES.

The "policy of commerce," and not important. It surpasses them all. It is the "policy of conquest," is the policy of paramount. the United States.

The spirit of the age, animated by private enterprise, is every day seeking new fields for its peaceful triumphs, and commerce can accomplish throughout the world no achievements like those which will note its coming, and signalize its marches up and down the Amazon, and the other great rivers of that greatest of water-sheds, the Atlantic slopes of South America.

Men may talk about Cuba and Japan; but of all the diplomatic questions of the day, the free navigation of those majestic water-courses, and their tributaries, is to this country the most interesting and 3

VOL. XIV.

The country that is drained by the Amazon, if reclaimed from the savage, the wild beast, and the reptile, and reduced to cultivation now, would be capable of supporting with its produce the population of the whole world.

It is a rice country. The common yield of rice is forty for one. It is reaped five months after planting, and may be planted at any time of the year. Thus the farmer may plant one bushel of rice to-day-in five months hence he will gather forty from it. Planting these forty, he may, in another five months, gather sixteen hundred bushels. In ten months the earth yields an

increase there of a thousand-fold and blank; nor is it to be reached except

more.

Corn, too, may be planted at any time, and in three months is fit for gathering. Thus the husbandman there may gather four crops of corn a year. Its seasons are an everlasting summer, with a perpetual round of harvests.

It is the policy of commerce-and commerce is the policy of these United States-to open that river to steam, and its valley to settlement and cultivation; its earth, its air, and its waters, to the business and wants of trade and traffic.

There, upon that Atlantic slope of South America, in the valley of the La Plata, and in the valley of the Amazon, Nature in all her ways has been most bountiful.

There the vegetable kingdom displays its forces in all their most perfect grandeur, and in all their might; and there, too, the mineral kingdom is most dazzling with its wealth.

through the powers of steam, and the free use of its majestic water-courses.

It is of this country-of the importance of settling it up, of sending there the emigrant, the steamboat, the axe, and the plow, with the messengers and agencies of commerce-that I wish to speak.

Let us, therefore, first see where it is, how far off it is, and what is its actual condition, and then we will be enabled the better to judge as to the true course of policy which it would be best for the commercial nations of the earth to take with regard to it.

The semi-continent of South America is very nearly in shape to that of a rightangled triangle. Its hypotenuse rests on the Pacific; one of its legs extends from Cape Horn to Cape St. Roque. Here the right angle is formed with the other leg, which extends from Cape St. Roque, in latitude 5 deg. south, to Cabo La Vela, of the Caribbean Sea, in latitude 12 deg. north.

In that region of country wagon-roads are few, turnpikes unknown, and the first railway has yet to be built; and though The longer leg is that between capes the La Plata drains a country nearly as Horn and St. Roque; it is 3,500 geogralarge and many times more fertile than phical miles in length. The other leg is our own Mississippi valley, and though has only 2,500; but the hypotenuse, that of the Amazon is twice as great, which stands on the Andes and rests on and its tributaries many times longer, the Pacific, is more than 4,000 miles more navigable, and numerous, yet the steamboat upon those waters is a problem almost untried. In the valley of the Amazon the plow is unknown; and the American rifle and axe, the great implements of settlement and civilization, are curiosities.

For more than three hundred years the white man has been established in that Amazonian basin, and for more than three hundred years it has remained a howling wilderness. Owing to the mismanagement of its rulers, the European has made no impressionnone-no, not the least-upon its forests. How long shall this continue to be so?

Has diplomacy no arts, commerce no charms, by which this policy may be broken up: by which its rivers may be opened to navigation, its forests to settlement, its pampas to cultivation ?

What commerce has done for South America is as nothing in comparison with what it will do. It has fringed only the sea-coast of that continent with settlement and cultivation. The great interior has never been touched. The heart of the country is a commercial

long.

This configuration exercises a powerful influence upon the climates of South America, especially as it regards its hydrography. The great rivers of that country, the mighty Amazon and the majestic La Plata, are resultants of this configuration. In consequence of having a sea-front which rests upon the short leg in the northern hemisphere, and looking to the northeast-and in consequence of having the sea-front which rests upon the long leg in the southern hemisphere, to look southeast, the northeast and the southeast trade-winds, as they come across the Atlantic filled with moisture, go full charged into the interior, dropping it in showers as they go, until they reach the snow-capped summits of the Andes, where the last drop, which that very low temperature can wring from them, is deposited to melt and feed the sources of the Amazon and the La Plata with their tributaries.

The northeast trade-winds commence to blow about the Tropic of Cancer, and coming from the quarter they do, they blow obliquely across the Atlantic. They

Influence of the Trade-winds upon the Valley of the Amazon. 451

evaporate from the sea as they go; and, terior, as they do in South America. The impinging at right angles upon the South consequence is, none of those interAmerican shore-line that extends from tropical countries can boast of streams Cape St. Roque to Cabo La Vela, they and water-courses like those of South carry into the interior the vapor that America. forms the clouds that give the rain which supplies with water the Magdalena, the Orinoco, and the northern tributaries of the Amazon.

The volume of water discharged by these rivers into the sea is expressive of the quantity which those northeast tradewinds take up from the sea, carry in the clouds, and precipitate upon the watershed that is drained by these streams. They are but pipes and gutters which nature has placed under the eaves of the great water-shed that has the Andes for a ridge-pole, the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic for a cistern.

The trade-wind region of the North Atlantic affords the water-surface where the evaporation is carried on that supplies with rains, dews, and moisture, New-Granada, Venezuela, the three Guianas, and the Atlantic slopes of the Ecuador.

The shore line of eastern Africa is arranged like that of the South American water-shed; but it has not sea enough to windward to supply the vapor to feed springs enough to make large rivers.

The southeast trade-winds, when the monsoons of the Indian ocean will permit them to blow, strike perpendicularly upon the east coast of South Africa, as they do upon that of South America. In the American case, they blow perpetually-in the African case, for not half the year. They, therefore, cannot give Africa half as much rain as South America receives.

At Cape Guardafui the right angle of the African coast line is formed, as it is at Cape St. Roque for America; but the winds which cross this line between Cape St. Roque and the isthmus have traversed the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Seahence they reach the land dripping with On the other hand, the southeast trade- moisture; whereas, in Africa, the northwinds commence to blow about the east trades, which cross the coast-line parallel of 30 deg, or 35 deg. south. from Cape Guardafui to the isthmus of They, too, come obliquely across the Suez, have sucked up vapors from the Atlantic, and strike perpendicularly upon Red Sea only-therefore the quantity of the South American coast-line which ex- moisture which these winds carry into tends from Cape St. Roque towards Cape the interior of Africa is not by any means Horn. They pass into the interior with so great as that which those of the Attheir whole load of moisture, every drop of which is wrung from them before they cross the Andes. The quantity of moisture which is taken up from the sea and rained down upon this wonderfully fruitful country, may be seen in what the La Plata and the Amazon discharge back into the ocean.

Now, there is no tropical country in the world which has to windward, and so exactly to windward of it, such an extent of ocean in the trade-wind region. Consequently there is no inter-tropical country in the world that is so finely watered as is this great Amazon country of South America.

Along the Atlantic coast of the United States, along the coast of China and the east coast of New-Holland, the land trends along with the direction of the trade-winds of those regions. These winds, with their moisture, travel along parallel with the land. They do not blow perpendicularly upon it, nor push their vapors right across it into the in

lantic carry over into South America. The difference is as great as is the difference of the evaporating surface exposed to the northeast trade-winds by the Atlantic on the one hand, and by the Red Sea on the other.

The two systems of trade-winds-the northeast and the southeast-meet in the interior of South America, somewhere between the equator and the Isthmus of Darien. This place of meeting is a place of calms, and where it is, there it is rainy.

This circumstance, and other meteorological agents, divide the seasons in the northern portions of South America, especially the valley of the Orinoco, into the rainy and the dry-six months of constant rain, six months of blighting drought is the condition here.

Not so in the valley of the Amazon. There the weather is agreeable all the year round; and though more rain falls there in some months than in others, as it does here with us, still there as here,

it may rain, and does rain, any day in
the
year.

Now, I think that any one who has followed me with a map will perceive why this inter-tropical region of South America, or that part of its water-shed which, from Panama to the parallel of 30° or 35° south, slopes towards the Atlantic, has, and ought to have, the most remarkable climate in the world. We have seen that Eastern Africa, and Eastern Africa alone, resembles it in configuration of shore line; but the evaporating surface and the supplies of vapor are wanting, and therefore South Africa cannot be nearly so well supplied with rains, and consequently with rivers, as is South America.

Now, what ought to be the condition of an inter-tropical country whose plains are watered with frequent showers, unaccompanied by a single drought, during ages of perpetual summer? Why, fertility and salubrity; for in such a climate anything and everything will grow. The rapid production and constant decay of vegetable matter that have been going on there for thousands and thousands of years, must have made the soil rich with vegetable mould.

The fact that vegetation there is in perpetual activity-that there, there is no period of vegetable repose-that as fast as one leaf fails and begins to decay, other leaves, just putting forth, absorb its gases-these conditions make In all the other inter-tropical regions the valley of the Amazon one of the of the world-in India, in Western most salubrious and delightful of cliAfrica, New Holland, and Polynesia- mates. the year is divided into the rainy season and the dry; during the latter of which little or no water falls, springs go dry, and cattle perish, and dead bodies pollute the air. Then, too, stalks forth in those countries the "pestilence that walketh in darkness."

In the valley of the Amazon no such condition exists. There the fall of water, though copious-the river Amazon is the rain-guage-is not compressed within a few months, nor accompanied by the terrible hurricanes and tornadoes which rage at the change of seasons in India. Here, in America, gentle and fruitful showers fall daily, and tornadoes

are rare.

Because the Amazon is in a tropical country, the public is disposed to judge of its climates by comparing them with the climates of other tropical countriesas India, for example. But for the reasons stated, and because there are no monsoons or other conditions to cause the valley of the Amazon to be parched with drought at one season, and drenched with rains at another-as India is on one hand, and the Orinoco country on the other-there is no more resemblance between the climates of India and of the Amazon than there is between the climates of Rome and Boston; and any one who would infer similarity of climate from the fact that Boston and Rome are in the same latitude, would not be more out than he who infers sim. ilarity of climate between India and Amazonia because they both are tropical countries.

Having shown that the climate of the La Plata and Amazon country is a climate without droughts, and that it is a moist and warm climate, I have established enough to satisfy any one that the soil there, whatever be the substratum, must have upon it a rich vegetable mould, which the decay of the most rank vegetation during many ages must have formed.

I proceed now to show the present condition with the future resources and commercial capabilities of the great South American water-sheds. I will confine my attention to the rivers Amazon and La Plata, to their tributaries, and the valleys drained by them. But first, let us give our attention to the La Plata, and compare the extent of country drained by it with the extent drained by rivers in the northern hemisphere.

The valley of the Amazon lies in both hemispheres; it is the largest river basin in the world, but it belongs exclusively neither to the North nor to the South. Excluding the Amazon, therefore, from the comparison, the Mississip pi, then, it will be perceived, drains the largest river basin in the northern, and the La Plata the largest in the southern hemisphere. Both these streams run from north to south, each one embracing a great variety of productions, and traversing many diversities of climate; but one runs towards the equator, the other from it.

The area of the principal river-basins which are drained into seas that are ac

Area of the Principal River-basins—The Uruguay and Parana. 453

cessible to ocean commerce, may be thus stated:

In America.-The Amazon, area (ineluding the Orinoco,) 2,048,480 square miles.

North America.-The Mississippi, area 982,000 square miles.

South America.-The La Plata, area 886.000 square miles.

Europe. The Danube, area 234,000 square miles.

Africa. The Nile, area 520,000 square miles.

Asia (China).-The Yang-tse-Keang, area 547,000 square miles.

India.-The Ganges, area 432,000 square miles.

It will thus be observed that the valley of the La Plata in area is the third in the world; that it is twice as large as the valley of the Ganges, and more than three times as large as the largest river basin in Europe.

junction of the Parana and the Uruguay. I treat of all the country drained by these rivers and their tributaries as the valley of the La Plata.

The Uruguay is a beautiful stream. It takes its rise in the Brazilian province of Santa Catarina, on the western slopes of the "Serra do Mar," or the sea range of mountains. Its course is first westwardly and then southwardly; it is about seven hundred miles long; drains a rich, fertile, and tolerably well-settled country. For part of the way it is the boundary between Brazil, with the Banda Oriental on one side, and the Argentine Confederation on the other.

The Parana is a majestic river. It is formed by the junction of the two Brazilian streams, the Rio Grande and the Paranahiba. The former takes its rise near the parallel of 20° south, not far from the sea-shore, and in the wealthy province of Minas Geraes. The valley in which the head-waters of this river are gathered into the main stream is most magnificent. It is about two hundred miles broad in the widest part, by four hundred miles long. The course of the Rio Grande through it is due west;

The basin of the La Plata embraces all the latitudes, and more too, that are to be found in the valleys of the Indus, the Ganges and the Irawaddy-the great river-basins of India. It consequently has all the agricultural capacities, and more, that are to be found in the climates it maintains this course for about five of India. These great resources of the La Plata for the most part lie dormant. They are hidden in the bosom of the earth, or concealed in the recesses of the mountains. The waters of the La Plata flow through climates that are favorable to the growth of sugar, of tea and coffee, of rice, hemp, and tobacco, of cotton and corn, of drugs, woods, dyes, and spices, and of almost all the agricultural staples of the earth.

The Rio de la Plata lies wholly within the southern hemisphere, and it is the greatest river that does so lie; consequently it has opposite seasons with those of the northern. When the husbandman is sowing in the north, then he who tills the earth in this beautiful river basin will be gathering his crop; and consequently the planter, and the farmer, and the merchant of the La Plata, will have control of the northern markets for six months of every year, without a competitor.

The Rio de la Plata, properly speaking, is that arm of the sea which lies between the parallels of 33° and 36° of south latitude. Its breadth is a hundred miles or more, according to the place of measurement, and it is formed by the

hundred miles, until it meets the Paranahiba coming from the northward, where its sources are interlapped, and almost mingled with those of the Amazon.

The population of the two interior provinces of Minas Geraes and Goiaz, in which these two tributaries of the Parana take their rise, and in which they lie, is for the former one million, for the latter one hundred and fifty thousand.

The Japanese-like policy which has been observed with regard to scientific explorations of the La Plata and its tributaries has kept the world in the dark as to many parts of that valley.

Dr. Francia established in Paraguay, many years ago, a government founded upon the Japanese system. Rosas attempted an imitation of this policy so long as he was in power; and Brazil has always practised it. So that geographers really know very little as to the Brazilian tributaries of the La Plata, their navigability, and the commercial resources of the countries which they drain.

According to the map "Do Imperio do Brazil," published in 1846, under the auspices of the Geographical Society, at