The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1919-05-21
Something Really Big

Instead of discussing the great problems Of life the
ponderous questions of craftsmanship let today study
little geography and peruse little of the history of of
the really big things of the world.
You read in the news columns that Dr. Alexander
Hamilton Rice and his wife are make another trip of
exploration up the Amazon River
The rivers of the world have always been most aurng
to adventurous spirits Herodous of the first
plorers of the Nile and the work he began nearly five hun
red years before the Christian continued with little
intermisson until it completed by Livingstone and
Stanley but few years ago.
It was more than three hundred years and only after
many expeditions that the of great Mssis
ppi made certain and from the Marquetes School
craft who completed the mapping of the stream there is
continual romance of travel and adventure
No flowing stream of great dimensions remains for
the explorer except the king of all rivers the Amazon
For four thousand miles it stretches back from the
Atlantic to the Andes draining territory covering four
tenhs of the continent of South AmericalmOst equal in
area to the whole of the United States
No has yet travelled from its to its
mouth and geogapher has yet plotted its true
The first attempt penetrate its mysteries made
by group of Spanish explorers 1900 but they only
about fifty miles before the junges stopped them.
The first descent of the river made in 1541 by or
lana and it was he who gave the river its name
On his way down the stream he encountered and gave
battle to force of natives who while fighting joined
by the members of the tribe the latter taking
valiant part In the battle as the men.
Because of the fact that in the history of Asia and
Africa Herodotus and Dodorus had called the women who
fought there Amazons he took the for the river
More lives have been lost in the exploration of this great
stream than any other attempt solve the geographical
mysteries Of any other part of the world.
Scores have been cazed by the hordes of poisonous
insects which infest the country.
Pzarro, the great Spanish explorer when he emerged
from its wilderness had only twenty-five left of the
$50 Spaniards and 1000 Indians who started with him.
The Amazon not so much river as great reservoir
Its breadth at food time is in many places 400 miles and
great rivers is the most stupendous body of flowing
in the world
This is the fourth trip of Dr. Rice into the interior of
South America and the second participated by his wife
They go equipped with all that modern science and
great wealth provide to insure While they will
not have wireless equipment of sufficient power to send
messages from the interior they will carry with them
receiving apparatus by which they hear all
sent out from the big Government wireless station Wash
ington and will know the of the world although the
world will hear nothing from them
Dr. Rices previous trips have brought him extraordi
nary experiences He has lived with and the food
prepared by tribes who had before white man
An accomplished physician and surgeon beWldered
the natives by extraordinary operations and cures He has
operated upon himself when the results of the sngs
of poisonous insects made death certain unless the injured
flesh was cut out.
We learn little except by pushing out into the unknown
It may to you, seemed to those who watched
Columbus sail away that expeditions like those of Dr. Rice
foohardy but the world has gained its greatest kno
edge from the efforts of those who rsked comfort and life
to enrich humanty's fund of information.
This editorial will only have been worth while if il has
interested you sufficiently in the subject have led you
to get out your atlas take down your encycopeda and
make yourself fully acquainted with the greatest river
Of the world and its history
down th. lives on the
pOen $ tfuny dedicated ' " IN"