Daily American telegraph., 1852-03-09
The Valley OF the Amazon.
BY LIEUT. NJ. F. MAURY.

From a very able article in the November
number of the Southern Literary Messenger, we
extract the following fine description Of this
valley:
OF more than twice the size of the Mississippi
Valley, the Valley of the Amazon is entirely
ntertropcal, An everlasting summer reigns
there. Up to the very base Of the Andes, the
river itself is naygable for vessels of the largest
class. The Pennsylvania "a may 60 there
| natural canal through the Caciquiari con-
meets it with the Oronoco giving drainage and
fertility to immense plains that cover two
millions OF square miles, it receives from the
north and south innumerable tributaries,
which it is said afford an inland navigation,
up and down, of not less than seventy or eighty
thousand miles in extent. Stretched out in a
continuous line the navlvable streams Of that
great watershed would more than encrcle
the earth around at its largest girth.
All the climates of India are there. Indeed,
we may say, that from the mouth to the sour
ces of the Amazon, piled up one above another,
| and spread out, Andean like, over steppe after
steppe in beautiful, unbroken succession, are
all the climates and all the soils with the
capacities of production that are to be found
between tho regions of everlasting summer and
eternal snow.
The Valley of the Amazon is the place of
production of India rubber-an article of COM
merce which has no parallel as to the increase
of demand for it, save and except in the history
of our own great staple since the invention of
the cotton gin. We all recoilect when the
only uses to which India rubber was applied
were to rub out pencil marks and make trap
balls for boys.
! But it is made into shoes and hats, caps and
cloaks, footballs and purses, ribbons and cush-
ions, boats, beds, tents, and bags into pontoons
for pushing armies across rivers, and into
camels for lifting ships over shoals. 1t is also
applied to a variety of other uses and purposes,
the mere enumeration of which would make US
tedious. New applications of it are continual
ly being made Boundless forests of the Sa-
ringa trees are found upon the banks Of this
stream, and the expectation of this gum from
the mouth of that river is daily becoming
business of more and more value, extent and
Importance.
In 1s46I7, pontoons for the British army
in India, and tents for the American army in
Mexico, were made in New England from the
India rubber of the Amazon. It is the best in
the world
The sugar cane is found here in its most
luxuriant growth, and of the richest saccharine
development. 1t requires to be planted but
once in 20 years.
mere TOO are produced, OF exceuent quality
and in great profusion, coffee and tobacco, rice
and indigo, cocoa and cotton, with drugs Of
virtues the most rare dyes of hues the most
brilliant and spices Of aroma the most exquisite.
! Soils of the richest loan and the finest alluvi-
ons are there. The climate of India, of the
Moluceas, and the Spice Islands, are all there.
And there, too, lying dormant, are the bound
less agricultural and mineral capacities of the
East and West all clustered together If COM
merce were but once to spread its wings over
that valley, the shadow of it would be Ike the
touch of a magician's wand; those immense
resources would spring at once into life and
activity.
In the fine imagery of their language, the
Indians call the Amazon the King of Rivers"
1t empties into the Ocean under the Line.