Realidades amazónicas. Navegaçao interna e transcontinental sulamericana
Authors: Chongor Czigani A. 
Published: November 2022

In the first part of this first study of the Amazon, called "South american internal and transcontinental navigation" — which by obvious reasons is not limited to the watershed of the Amazon, but also includes the neighbouring rivers — we detail the causes which led us to its elaboration, i.e. the great gift of Nature to present the South American Continent a potamographic abundance without equal in the world as well as its present state of non-utilization. We demonstrate with technical data the great advantages of water transport — the most economic of all transports — and that this type of transport has not become obsolete by the modern road transport, as a tendencious propaganda wants to make it believe in our Continent. Finally, we present special arguments to show that no other continent needs so much the great development of waterways as South America and none has such possibilities for this development.

The second part of the present Study of the Amazon begins with a detailed account of the past of the utilization of our waterways since the beginning of the Conquest, continued by the age of the missions, penetrations and "bandeiras" and finally by the age of the consolidation of the conquests, to present thereafter a detailed description of the present state of the 3 main watersheds which are connected between themselves, considered by us as a really unique net of uninterrupted waterways, i.e. that of the Amazon in the middle as well as those of ist neighbours, the Orinoco in the North and the River Plate in the South. We give a detailed account of the latest data of their navigabilities. Finally, we emphasize again the great possibilities of this river world without equal, quoting important people who pointed out the necessity of its utilization.

The third part deals with the great natural connections between the bassins of the Orinoco and the Amazon by the river Cassiquiare and other rivers as well as between the bassins of the Amazon and the River Plate by rivers without any declivity or current. In this part we deal with the circular waterway which, turning round the Great Brazilian Plain, as big as "mosaic" Europe, could connect through a remote and unutilized in- land by rivers the Equatorial Atlantic (mouth of the Amazon) with the South Atlantic (mouth of the River Plate). We describe several works of engineering which would be necessary in order to turn this gigantic waterway a reality, a waterway which in itself, without its many branches, would have a length of almost 8.000 kilometres.

We are going to deal then with the Waterway of the great (or double) circuit which would not only turn round the Great Brazilian Plain, but also the plateau of Guyana, both at the same time, through a course of almost 10.000 kilometres in the farthest ond most backward part of the Continent, with the construction of only about 5 kilometres of artificial waterway. All the rest of this gigantic inland waterway are natural rivers,

In the fourth part there is an account of the works already accomplished for these two circular waterways and of those still to be made. Hare we only mention the works at the section Madeira — Mamore — Paraguay, since the other sections have been dealt with in the former part. We also talk about the works to be done at the section Rio Negro — middle Orinoco, including the Cassiquiare ; finally, we are dealing with the third alternative, the North-South Transcontinental Waterway or Caribbean — River Plate central trunk, with the construction of an "appendix", the Caribbean - Orinoco Canal, to the Waterway of the great Circuit. This would also mean an inland waterway of almost 10.000 kilometres, a fourth part of the greatest circumference of the Earth, the Equator.

The fifth part deals with the Great Northern and Southern crossings of this trunk waterway : these would be the Amazon in the northern part as well as the Parana at the eastern side and the Bermejo at the western side of the southern part of the "North-South trunk". Since the navigability of the Amazon River has been dealt with in its details in the second part, here we only describe the present and future navigation on the Parana River, main artery of the Lowlands, the Great Brazilian Plain, in one word of the whole River Plate Bassin, with all its famous dams already built, in building, and projected, for the use of shipping and hydroelectric energy. We also deal with the western branch of this crossing, the Bermejo which would be canalized as far as the foot of the Argentinian Andes (Tucumano — Bolivianos, and also the Salado as soon as it is canalized), equally to the Amazon River and its affluents as well as the affluents of the Orinoco (Meta, etc.) which would lead as ar as the foot of the Andes in the tropical zone (Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela). At the end of this part we give a general view of the main inland branches which — as if it were a perfectly projected railway net — leads or would lead to all parts ci the gigantic inland of this big continent and to its four exits to the Ocean.

In the sixth part we deal with an internal "oceanic" belt at 1 . 500 kilometres from the coast, to be created by the waterways already described, which would lead to a great development of the abandoned South American inland, backward because of its great distance from the Ocean coast ; a development already in progress in the coastal regions. Thus, this progress — which today is only an Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean progress — could arrive in the inland. At the same time we emphasize the importance of these waterways that either already exist or are to be created with the elimination of certain obstacles, in the natural integration of all this inland whose greatest part is the "Amazonia". Thus, this sixth part is the conclusion of the present study about the Amazon, and at the same time an anticipated Introduction for the continuity of our next studies of this endless region, which will be published in this Bulletin.

In our study we always emphasize the factor of energy, complementary to that of the waterways (by the way, in many cases we consider this latter as a "subproduct" of the first) in view that this is a subject of ever growing importance for mankind because of the scarceity of energy foreseen for the end of this century, while the inexhaustible hydroelectric reserves of our South American rivers are still very little exploited. As a matter of fact, they are totally unexploited in the Amazon bassin.