Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1853-03-02

rica, or that part of its watershed which
forms Panama to the parallel of 80 or SO
deg. South, slopes towards the Atlantic.
has. and ought to have the most remarka-
ble climate in the world. We have seen
that Eastern Africa and Eastern Africa
alone, resembles it in confgrIratfon of
shore line, for evaporating surface and
the supplies of yapor are wanting, and
therefore South Africa cannot be nearly
so we'll supplied with rains and conse-
quently with rivers, as South America.
| In all the other inter-tropical regions
of the world-in India. in Western Afri-
ca, New Holland and Polynesia-they year
is divided out into the rainy season and
the dry; during the latter of which lit
| tie or no water falls, springs go dry and
cattle perish, and dead bodies pollutes the
air Then, too, stalks forth in those
countries the 'pestilence that walketh in
darkness l al l.l
In the valley Of the Amazon no such
condition exists. There the fall of water,
though copious-the river Amazon is the
rain -gauge-ls not compressed within
few months, nor accompanied by the ter
rible hurricanes and tornadoes which race
at the change of seasons in India. Here.
in America, gentle and fruitful showers
fall daily, and tornadoes are unknown.
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 countries
India, for example. But, for the reasons
stated, and because there are no mon
soons or other conditions to cause the val
ley 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 Oronoco country on the other
there is no more resemblance betweeen
the climates of Rome and Boston and
any one who would infer similarity Of eli
mate from the fact that Boston and Rome
are in the same latitude would not be
more out than he who infers similarity
of climate between India and Amazonia,
because they both are tropical countries.
Now, what ought to be the condition of
an inter-tropical country, whose plains are
watered by frequent showers, unaccom-
panied by 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 yegeta-
BILE matter that have been going on there
for thousandsand thousands of years must
have made the soil rich with vegetable
mould.
The fact that -egetation there is in per-
petual activity. that there is no period
of vegetable repose-that as fast as one
leaf falls and begins to decay other leaves
just putting forth absorbs its gases and
makes the valley of the Amazon enc o
the most salubrious and delightful of eli
mates. :
Having shown that the climate of the La
Plata and Amazon country is climate
without droughts, and that it is moist
and warm climate. l have establishe ed
enough to satisfy any one that the soil
there, whatever be the substratum must
have upon it rich vegetable mould,
which the decay of the most rank vegeta-
ton during ages must have formed.
In my next shall proceed to show what
travellers and men of science. who have
explored various portions of this wonder
full region of country, say as to its produc-
tions. its commerce, and the navigability
of its water-courses.