THE GREATEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 290, 19 September 1874, Page 4

THE GREATEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.

The Amazon is'the voluminous of rivers. At the narrows" of the Obydos, six hundred miles from the sea, hair'., a,: million of cubic feet of-water pass any given point, every, second.' .Born in Lake Lauricocha, among the Andes of ; Peru, the main trunk runs . .Dorfcherly for,five ~hundred in a 1 continuous series of rapids,, and-then J 'frqm .tKe'frontier of Ecuador,"it. flows 'easterly" " twentyrfive hundred miles across the equatorial plain of thevcon- .i ..tinent, .T)ie average- current of the great river in' its passage through Brazil is, three miles au'hour. At; Tabotinga, 2,000 miles from its mouth, ; the width is a mile and a half, with a depth of eleven fathoms. At the entrance of . the Maderia it is three miles wide, and below Santaren ifc is ten. r. The tribu- 1 turies are in. keeping with this colossal* trunk ; in fact, the Amazon is a great •river system rather than one river. It .has twelve affluents over a- th.oijsand.: miles ,long, the largest, :the Maderia, equalling the Arkansas, entering the Amazon 900 - miles from its mouth. .Uenidi-s these, and a'host .of ;rainor tributaries, there is a wonderful network of natural canals alongside of the main river and joining the tributaries, called "igarapes," " paran&s,*' and " furos." These byepaths are of great advantage | for inter-commu-nication ; They are chat racterist.ic of the country, and'are so-nu-!l merous that Anrnzonia'is truly a -el us-: ter of islands. Altogether, this island • or'fresh-water sea drains a territory of twomi ifioll- square miles, reaching from ; t the Andes to the Atlantic,' and throwing out'its arms to the Orinoco arid •Paraguay. Oii the lower Amazon the ' anliual.irise'.reachqa its;maximum, about; •the inifcltllßiOf.Junei and "tits: minimumin ( December, :the difference' of level'' • bang About three ft J et. No other ri- ' vcr runs in so deep <1 channel to so ■jjreat a distance. No other I'iver can, ■ furnish 6000 miles of continuous naavigation for large vessels. Eor 2000 miles from its mouth'the main stream has urtt less than seven fathoms of waterf ;; a»d not a fall interrupts navi:for 2500 miles f ihe Pongo de Manerchie is the western limit to ilavigation on the Amazon proper. While ;the current iq ever, east, there is a constant trade'wind' westward, so that navigation up or down has ;always somethingl in its favor. In August and September a strong breezo sweeps over the lower part of £he main trunk, so that schooner* often go from Para, to ,Obydos ih teh days, or one-third of the ordinary time; ■ '