380 AMAZON thing is visible but variegated clays and a red- dish sandstone. Prof. Agassiz has considered it a cretaceous basin filled with glacial drift ; but Prof. Orton hi 1867 discovered a highly fossiliferous deposit hi the clay formation, con- taining extinct shells, showing it to be of plio- cene or miocene date. The region traversed by the Amazon and its affluents is covered with vast forests, and possesses a soil of extraor- dinary fertility. "If," says Humboldt, "the name of primeval forest can be given to any forest on the face of the earth, none perhaps can so strictly claim it as those that fill the connected basin of the Orinoco and the Amazon." " From the grassy steppes of Ven- ezuela to the treeless pampas of Buenos Ayres," says a later traveller just referred to, "expands a sea of verdure, in which we may draw a circle of 1,100 m. in diameter which shall include an evergreen, unbroken forest. There is a most bewildering diver- sity of grand and beautiful trees a wild, un- conquered race of vegetable giants, draped, festooned, corded, matted, and ribboned with climbing and creeping plants, woody and suc- culent, in endless variety. The exuberance of nature displayed in these million square acres of tangled, impenetrable forest offers a bar to civilization nearly as great as its sterility in the African deserts." Palms, leguminous trees, and giant grasses are the predominant forms. The most valuable for commerce are the caoutchouc tree and Brazil-nut tree, and more than 100 varieties of beautiful woods eminent for their hardness, tints, and texture. Animal life is not so conspicuous in the forest as in the river. The latter is crowded with strange fishes (of which the largest is the pira- rucu, 8 ft. long), alligators, turtles, anacondas, porpoises, and manatees. Mammals, birds, and reptiles are scattered through the forest in great variety, but few appear in any one place. The common forms are monkeys, jaguars, tapirs, capybaras, peccaries, sloths, deer, armadillos, toucans, and macaws. The shores are likewise thinly inhabited ; the most important tribes are the Mundurucus, Tucunas, and Yaguas. The largest towns are Para, Santarem, Manaos, and Iquitos. The Amazon presents an unparalleled extent of water communication. It starts with- in 70 m. of the Pacific, and with its tributaries touches Guiana and Paraguay. The Amazon was opened to the world in 1867, and regular lines of steamers ascend to Yurimaguas on the Huallaga. The most important exports are rub- ber, cacao, nuts, copaiba, cotton, hides, piacaba (palm fibre), sarsaparilla, farina, tonka beans, annotto, and tobacco. The Amazon navigation company (Brazilian), established in 1854, had in 1872 a capital of $2,200,000, and 9 steam- ers, 5 of which ply exclusively in the Amazon waters : 2 between Para and Loreto in Peru, distance 2,100 m. ; 1 on the Peruvian branch of the river, 288 m. ; 1 from Para to Obidos, 400 m. ; 1 from Santarem to Faro ; total dis- tance, round trips, 10,491 m. Total receipts in AMAZONS 1869 for passengers and freight, $207,452 08. Imports, $402,580 40; exports, $364,614 19. Yafiez Pinzon discovered the mouth of the Amazon in 1500 ; but the river was first naviga- ted by Orellana, Pizarro's officer, who in 1541 descended from the Napo to the Atlantic. In 1637 Texeira ascended by the Napo to Quito, and Father Acufia, who accompanied him, published the first description. The name Amazon is derived either from the Indian word amassona, boat-destroyer, or from Orellana's story of his fight with a nation of female war- riors; which fable probably grew out of the fact that the men part the hair in the middle and wear long tunics. The old names of the river, Orellana and Parana-tinga, are obsolete. Alto Amazonas, or Upper Amazon, is applied to all above the Negro. To the middle Ama- zon, between Tabatinga and Manaos, the name Solimoens is sometimes given. The part above Tabatinga, or the Peruvian portion, is called Marafion, which includes the Tunguragua. AMAZONAS. I. The northernmost province of Brazil, bounded N. by Guiana and Vene- zuela, N. W. by Colombia, W. by Ecuador and Peru, S. by Peru, Bolivia, and the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso, and E. by the prov- ince of Para. Its limits have not been pre- cisely defined; pop. about 80,000. The sur- face is covered by virgin forests, and but little known. In this province, at and near the town of Manaos, the river system of South America unites. The principal streams are the Amazon (which above Manaos is called the Solimoens), Negro, Pntumayo, and Madeira. II. A N. department of Peru, bounded N. by Ecua- dor; area, about 18,000 sq. m. ; pop. 44,000, besides about 60,000 Indians of nomadic tribes. It is traversed by the Andes. The soil, which is watered by the Marafion and several of its affluents, is extremely fertile, and produces wheat, corn, rice, all sorts of fruits and vege- tables, sugar cane, tobacco, cacao, coffee, cot- ton, indigo, quinine, and saraaparilla in abun- dance. Its virgin forests are rich in mahog- any, cedar, and other valuable timber. The chief industries are the manufacture of sugar, rum, cottons, and woollens, and the salting of fish. Capital, Chachapoyas. AMAZONIA, a title given by the geographers of the 17th and 18th centuries to an unexplored tract in the central portion of the Amazon basin, supposed to be inhabited by a tribe of warlike women, who governed themselves, and would tolerate no males in their community. AMAZONS (Gr. a privative and //<*<$?, breast), a race of warlike women, whose original seat is said to have been in the country adjoining the Caucasus. They were believed to be gov- erned by a queen, and to propagate the spe- cies by cohabiting once every year with the Gargareans, a nation of men whose territory was separated from that of the Amazons by a chain of mountains. Their male children were either sent to the Gargareans or put to death. Their female children were deprived of the
