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Europe, and by its genial warmth makes productive the soil there.

That we may realize the extent of these river basins of America, let us add to those of the MedThe Amazon rising in the Andes and empty-iterranean the chief river basins of Western Euing into the ocean under the line, also finds its rope and Southern Asia, and see then if they can way through the magnificent llanos and pampas out-measure the valleys drained by our Mediterof the tropics down to the margin of this sea. ranean alone. In consequence of the Gulf Stream the mouth of the Mississippi is really in the Florida pass. The waters of the Amazon flow through the same channel. The great Equatorial current of the Atlantic sweeps across the mouth of this It is a remarkable feature in the formation of river and carries its waters into the Carribean this continent that there are no great basins in Sea; from the Carribean Sea they flow into the the interior without sea-drainage, and no rainGulf of Mexico, and thence by the Gulf Stream less districts of any considerable extent. With back into the Atlantic. Such is the channel one or two exceptions as the inland basin of the through which the waters of the Atlantic com- City of Mexico, and the Salt Lake, which complete their circuit and are borne back into the prise but small districts of country, all the water ocean again. The distance in a straight line courses of America empty into the sea. The from the mouth of the Amazon to the Florida pass extent of country for sea drainage here is far is only twenty-four hundred miles. Therefore greater than in any other part of the world. the Amazon may very properly be regarded as Hence we have larger valleys, valleys that are one of the tributaries, and its basin as a part of longer and broader than any in the Old World. the back country, to this our noble sea. Consequently, they collect more water, call for more drainage, and hence give rise to more and larger rivers. In the Old World there is a region of country 80° of longitude by 17° of latitude in extent, in which it never rains. Here, between the Andes and the Atlantic there is no such rainless region. The annual fall of rain between the tropics in the Old World is 6 feet; in the New World it is 11; and it is greater here than there in the temperate zones also. More than one half of all the fresh water in the world is on the continent of North America. In facts like these is found the explanation as to the cause of the surprising length and volume of many of the American rivers. Big rivers are required to drain broad valleys.

Before doing this, however, we will take a glance at the geographical features and physical condition, which regulate the size of the river basins to be considered.

The connexion is even more close; for one mouth of the Amazon is that of the Orinoco, which empties directly into the Carribean Sea. These two streams present the anomaly of two great rivers having sources that are common. A person sailing up the Amazon, may cross over into the Orinoco, and re-enter the sea through that river without having set his foot on shore or disembarked once. The Rio Negro takes its rise from the eastern slope of the Andes, and after having run several hundred miles, it divides itself into two streams, one of which flows into the Amazon, the other into the Orinoco. This is nature's canal between them.

The Mississippi and the Amazon are the two great commercial arteries of the continent. They In Europe and Asia the great continental deare fed by tributaries with navigable length of clivities are such as to leave no room for any rechanuel more than enough to encircle the globe. markable length of river and breadth of valley. This sea therefore is like a heart to the ocean. In North America there is an immense valley Its two divisions of Sea and Gulf perform the office between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mounof ventricles in the system of ocean circulation. tains. The great Lakes form the northern edge Floating bodies from the region of Cape Horn, of this valley, the entire drainage of which is from the coast of Africa and the shores of Eu- therefore carried off towards the south into the rope are conveyed into the Carribean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. thence into the Gulf of Mexico, whence its waters supplied anew with heat and motion, are again sent forth through their channels of circulation over the broad bosom of the Atlantic. To Western Europe the heated currents of this sea distribute their warmth, and then return back to their sources through the invisible channels of the deep.

We have seen that the river basins of the Mediterranean cover but little more than one-fourth the area which is drained by the streams which empty in the Central Sea of America.

This is the basin of the Mississippi.

In South America the Andes skirt the western coast very closely and send off to the East a chain of mountains from Bolivia to the Atlantic coast of Brazil. These mountains divide South America into two great systems of river basins; the drainage of one is to the north and east, of the

other to the south.

In the broadest part of the continent therefore, which is its northern portion, the continental slope gives rise to the first mentioned system. The district of country included in it is an im

mense one, the rains are heavy, and the drainage | the rivers of India flow, are limited to 10 degrees great. Hence the direction and volume of the of latitude; the produce that comes down those Para, the Amazon and Orinoco. The basin streams for market, has no greater range of cliwhich slopes to the south, is much less in extent; mate than that which is due a north and south it is drained by the La Plata. In one part of Europe the drainage is in all directions towards the Black sea, which is sunk down in a sort of basin of its own, and receives the drainage from several quarters. But the longest slope on the sides of this basin runs up west towards the centre of the continent. Here the Danube and other draining streams which empty into the Black sea and thence into the Mediterranean, take their rise.

On the shores of this last, we have the drainage to the south which gives rise to the Rhone, &c. Europe has its Atlantic slope also, and there the rivers, as the Tagus, the Rhine and the Elbe, run west. Thus we see that the Geographical features of Europe leave no room for a Hydrological expression like that of the Amazon and the Mississippi, with their valleys.

line of five or six hundred miles in length. Neither can the rivers themselves be very long, nor their basins very broad, nor their volume of waters very great. Their valleys may vie in fertility with those of the Mississippi and the Amazon, but as for diversity of climate, variety of productions and navigable capacity of water courses, there is no comparison.

Let us now return to the comparison as to extent of the river basins of the old world with those under consideration in the new.

According to one of the most remarkable works of the age-Professor Johnson's Physical Atlas— the river basins in the old world, contain in geographical square miles, stated in round numbers as follows, viz.

Of Mediterranean Europe,
Nile,

In the interior of Asia there is a grand conti- Euphrates, nental basin 85 degrees of longitude in length. Indus, It is spread out over the middle of the continent Ganges,

and extends from the borders of Europe to the Irawady,

eastern districts of China. It embraces a region Others of India,

of country more than four millions of square geo-Those of Western Europe, as
graphical miles in extent, which has no ocean
drainage. In the midst of the old world, it is

Rhine, &c.

surrounded by steppes and mountain ranges which Total Med. India and Western

shut it out from the world of waters beyond. It

gives rise to many large rivers as the Volga and

Europe,

1.160.000 sq.m.

520.000 444 196.000

312.000 * *

432.000 ** 331.000

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the Oural; but they empty into the Caspian and Area in geographical square miles of river basins drained inta other continental seas, which have no visible the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean sea. outlet or communication with the ocean. For Basin of Mississippi River, all the great purposes of commerce, this immense Basins in Florida and Texas (es

timated)

ca, do.

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and fertile basin is as blank as the desert of Za-
hara. Of course, then, the rivers above this Do. Mexico and Central Ameri-
basin must run north into the frozen ocean, which
also is a blank as white as snow, in the book Do. Amazon,
where commerce records her statistics. They Do. Orinoco and all others of
embrace nearly four millions of geographical
square miles.

On the south side of this inland basin, the inclination of the continental level, is towards the China seas and Indian ocean. Here then we must look for those river basins and the origin of those streams which give rise to the commerce of the east, and here accordingly we find the teeming valleys drained by the Euphrates, the Ganges and the Yangtse Kiang-all of which descend from fruitful plains, and all except the last, are open to trade and traffic with "Outside Barbarians."

Carrib. sea,

Total Gulf and Carrib. sea,

*Including the basin of Para.
do. Medit., India and West.
Europe,

982.000 sq.m.

520.000 **

300.000 ## 1.796.000 ***

700.000

4.298.000

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3.854.000 ** Difference-call it nothing, though it measures an area containing nearly half a million of square miles.

From this statement we are led to the very remarkable conclusion-and it is an important physico-commercial fact that the area of all the val The distance from the Bay of Bengal and Ara- leys which are drained by the rivers of Europe bian sea, to the southern edge of this great in- which empty into the Atlantic, of all the valleys land basin, varies from 3 to 10 degrees of lati- that are drained by the rivers of Asia, which empty tude, consequently the climates, through which into the Indian ocean, and of all the valleys

that are drained by the rivers of Africa and producing regions of the north, bearing vessels Europe which empty into the Mediterranean, deeply laden with produce; freighted with all does not cover an extent of territory as great varieties of the fruits of the temperate zones, as that included in the valleys drained by the they convey to the sea large cargoes of merchanAmerican rivers alone, which discharge them- dize, gathered from the products of the field, the selves into our central sea. Never was there forest and the mine. Hills of iron, mountains such a concentration upon any sea, of commer- and valleys filled with coal are found on its banks. cial resources. Never was there a sea known Its waters are mingled in the Gulf with those of with such a back country tributary to it. the Amazon and Orinoco, which run between the tropics. From their basins they are ready at the bidding of civilized man to place on this sea in all variety and abundance the products of the Torrid Zone. Arrived in the Gulf with these goods, the mariner then finds a river in the sea to speed him on with its favoring currents to prosperous voyages. Through the Gulf stream the productions of this grand system of river basins will be distributed over the world, passing by and enriching as they go, Norfolk, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, all the Atlantic slope and all the Pacific slope too of the United States.

The produce which comes down the rivers of Europe, has, when, it arrives on the shores of the Atlantic, to be transported 15 or 20,000 miles to be exchanged for that which comes from the river basins of India. From the mouth of the European rivers discharging into the Atlantic ocean, the voyage to the mouth of the Asiatic rivers which run into the Indian ocean, often occupies 200 days; consequently it requires a ship more than a year to take on board a cargo from the river basins of Europe, go with it to India, exchange it, and return with the proceeds thereof to the place whence she started; so great the distance and so long the period of time which separate these two fountains of commerce.

From 50° north to 20° south, the Mississippi and the Amazon take their rise. A straight line from the head waters of one to those of the other,

One ship, therefore, trading between the Amer-measures a quadrant of the Globe. They afford iean system of river basins, may fetch and carry, exchange and bring back in the course of one year, as many cargoes as ten ships can in the same time, convey between the remote basins of the system in the old world.

The products of the basin of the Mississippi, when they arrive at the Balize may, in 20 or 30 days, be landed on the banks of the Orinoco and Amazon. Thus in our favored position here in the new world, we have, at the distance of only a few days sail an extent of fruitful basins for commercial intercourse which they of the old world have to compass sea and land and to sail the world around to reach.

outlets to all the producing climates of the earth. Upon this Gulf and sea, perpetual summer reigns; and upon their shores, climate is piled upon climate, production upon production, in such luxuriance and profusion that man, without changing his latitude, may, in one day, ascend from summer's heat to winter's cold, gathering as he goes the fruits of every clime, the staples of every country.

To gather such things in the old world, commerce must first plume her wings and sail in search of them through all latitudes and climates, from the extreme north to the farthest south.

In the small compass of the West India sea, On this continent nature has been prodigal of are crowded together the natural outlets of the her bounties. Here, upon this central sea, she ocean, from mountains, plains and valleys, that has with a lavish hand grouped and arranged in embrace every variety of production, every dejuxtaposition, all those physical circumstances gree of latitude and climate, from perpetual winwhich make nations truly great. Here she has laid ter to eternal spring. The largest water courses the foundations for a commerce, the most mag- of Europe and India, do not run through more nificent the world ever saw. Here she has brought than 10° or 15° of latitude. The greatest variwithin the distance of a few days, the mouths of ety of climate possessed by the river basins of ber two greatest rivers. Here she has placed in India, the Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe, close proximity the natural outlets of her grand- is included between 100 and 55° of north latiest river basins. With unheard of powers of tude. Only forty-five degrees of latitude there production, these valleys range through all the against 70° here. There they are all in the same producing latitudes of the earth. They embrace every agricultural climate under the sun, they are capable of all variety of productions, which the whole world besides can afford. On their green osom, rests the throne of the vegetable kingom. Here commerce too in times to come, will hold its court.

hemisphere, and when it is seed time in one basin, it is seed time in all; and short harvests there produce famine. Here, in the American system, we include both hemispheres-and therefore when it is seed time in one basin, it is harvest in the other.

With this blessed alternation of seasons, so near at hand and so convenient to our great seaThe Mississippi comes down from the grain port towns, and avenues of trade, famine on these

shores is impossible. With this American sea between the two hemispheres and in the lap of both, nature has endowed it with commercial resources, and privileges of infinite variety. Here come together and unite in one, the natural highways to the ocean, from mountains, plains and valleys teeming with treasures from the mineral, the vegetable and the animal kingdoms-nature's most princely gifts to man.

Were it given to us of this day to look down through future generations, and to see the time when the valleys of the Mississippi, the Orinoco and the Amazon shall be reclaimed, peopled and cultivated up to their capacities of production, we should behold in this system of river basins and upon this central sea of ours, a picture such as no limner can draw, no fancy can sketch. All the elements of human greatness which river, land and sea can afford, are here crowded together. For their full development, easy access to the Pacific is necessary.

country with all the world besides. The pursuits of commerce abound in secrets of high import to the happiness of man; an easy communication from the Gulf to the Pacific is the key to some of them.

The products of seventy degrees of latitude are to be found in the river basins drained by this central sea. All nations want of them; but the 600 millions of people who live on the shores that are washed by the Pacific Ocean, are excluded from them. They are barred out from this great Cornu Copia of the World, by a strip of land but a span in breadth. From the mouth of the Amazon and the delta of the Mississippi to the Isthmus of Panama, the distance in each case is less than two thousand miles. Shall this barrier forever remain in our way to the markets and the wants of six hundred millions of people! Let those who study the sources and understand the elements of true national greatness ponder this question, while we consider the effects which the course of a river has upon the character of the people who inhabit its basin.

The course of a river exercises important bearings upon commerce. A river that runs east or west, has no diversity of climate, its basin is be- The most superficial observer remarks the eftween two parallels of latitude, and there is no fect which the course of a river has upon the variety of production from source to mouth, ex-flora and fauna that inhabit its banks; as the cept such as is due to elevation. The husband- traveller ascends an east or west stream, he finds man who inhabits the banks of such a stream, all the way up the same fish, the same beasts, when he descends it with his surplus produce birds and reptiles. There is as little variety for exchange and barter, finds on his arrival among those as there is among the plants and at its mouth, that he has but come to New herbage upon which they feed. But along riv Castle with coals only. He is there offered dupli-ers whose beds lie north and south, he sees as he cates in exchange for what he has brought to descends from source to mouth, entire changes sell; all sellers and no buyers never can make in the families, species and genera both of plants commerce brisk. Such a river may have a sta- and of animals. ple, it may be corn, it may be oil, but whatever it be, it is all they who dwell in its valley have to sell, and whatever they buy they buy with that staple. The commerce of such a basin therefore must be with other latitudes, with other climates and with regions which afford variety.

On the contrary, one who descends a river that runs north and south finds his climate changing day by day; at every turn new plants and strange animals meet his eye. He brings with him from its head-waters the furs, the cereal grains, and a variety of articles-productions of the north, to exchange for the coffee and sugar and the sweets of the south, which are gathered on its banks

below.

Can it be so, that climate which with its maltitudinous influences so strongly impresses itself upon the vegetation of a country, upon its beasts, birds and fishes-upon the whole face of organic nature, should produce no effect either upon the outer or the inner man! His habits depend in an eminent degree upon climate and soil, and these upon latitude; they operate upon his organization and affect his appearance; else whence the difference between the Caucassian and the Ethiopian; the Esquimaux of the north and the Aztec of the south?

The frigid zone is a niggard, yielding seanty returns to labor; there man is a beggar, and frem the cradle to the grave, he has a hard struggle to It is the business of commerce to minister to snatch from the land and water the bare means the fancies as well as the necessities of man; of animal subsistence. He has no time for moral she therefore delights in variety of climate and developments; his severe climate, with its conse assortments of merchandize. It is owing to the quently barren soil and stunted vegetation, taxes diversity of climate and production afforded by all his energies to make provision for the night the States of this Union and to the facilities of of his long and dreary winter. It should not be intercourse with them, that the trade of a single forgotten that man in the climates of severe cal State, as Massachusetts, with the rest exceeds requires more food for sustenance than he does in value the entire foreign commerce of the whole in the temperate regions; while on the other

hand nature is much less generous in her sources | look down upon it and die. It is drained by the of supply. These are based on the vegetation, Jordan and other streams which are shut out which goes on decreasing in perfection and devel- from the ocean. Here Christianity had its birth. opment from the Equator-where its energies are most active—to the poles, where they are most torpid. The torrid zone is most favorable for the development of vegetable as well as for purely animal life. But for man in the true nobleness of his being, the temperate zone is the place. Here he is neither pinched with hunger nor starved with cold as in the frigid, nor surfeited to plethora as in the torrid zone. Extremes are closely allied, the abundance of one and the scarcity of the other of It is remarkable that in the New World, there the zones each tends rather to the development should be but two inland basins, and they the of the animal passions than of the moral attri- spots where the Aborigines had attained their butes. The temperate zone is the happy middle highest degree of civilization. When compared for these. Here nature is not the severe task-with the whole continent, the area which these master of the polar regions, nor the prodigal basins occupy is found to be quite inconsiderahost of the tropics. She lures man to labor, and ble as to size. Grants of land of larger extent in the wholesome necessities of labor, he finds on the continent have been made to single indiexercise and incentive to the intellectual being. viduals. The Incas of Peru and the Aztecs of Here he is surrounded with all the physical con- Mexico each dwelt in inland basins. The basin ditions most favorable to progress and improve- of the sealed lake Titicaca is the only inland ment. Within the tropics he is enervated by the basin of South America; and with the exception climate. Nature does not impose the necessity of of the great salt basin, the basin of Mexico is severe toil there, but invites to luxury and repose; the only one in North America from which there and in so doing stimulates and excites the ani- is no outlet to the ocean. Each of those basins mal propensities at the expense of moral ad- is partly within the tropics, but their elevation above the level of the sea is such as to give them the climate, the flora, and the fauna with all the advantages and conditions of the temperate zones. More striking examples as to the effect of geographical conditions upon the character of man could scarcely be mentioned.

For the want of natural barriers to make their country an inland basin and to exclude them from liability to incursions from the savage hordes without, the Chinese built a wall, and under the shelter of that they attained the highest degree of civilization known among the ancients. Inter-? course with the world during the primitive agesi seems to have been unfavorable to the well-being and advancement of civilization.

vancement.

The facts are curious and ought to be mentioned: Not only the temperate zones, but certain places in them seem to be best adapted as the nurseries of civilization and Christianity, and therefore for the development of those faculties, attributes and qualities which distinguish and ennoble the human race most of all.

These favored spots are secluded places; they have been for the most part surrounded by mounains, and separated from the world beyond by barriers difficult to pass. They are inland basins, the most striking peculiarities of which are that they have no ocean drainage; their streams all empty into closed seas or lakes which have no visible connexion with the great salt seas that cover two-thirds of the earth's surface.

But civilization has now attained a growth which no longer requires the shelter of the mountains and their fastnesses to protect it from the rude shocks of savage man and his blighting passions. It now delights in free intercourse among nations, and flourishes best where commerce is most active and institutions are most liberal. The history of civilization in its early stages is that of a tender plant, which, while young, requires the protection and shelter of the hot-bed; but which, after it has attained a certain degree of vigor, thrives best in the open air. Since the transplanting of civilization from its secluded valleys it has attained a vigorous growth; under its shadow liberty finds shelter, man safety, and nations freedom of intercourse. Its seeds and its fruits have been borne to distant lands on the wings of commerce. Its branches reach all parts of the habitable globe.

When man was created in God's own image, he was placed in the garden spot of the earth, ear one of these basins, and on the banks of a iver that crosses parallels of latitude and runs hrough varieties of climate. Here he waxed trong and became wicked, and caused God to epent of the work of creation. Then the conlition of things was changed: the earth was ursed for man's sake; and after the flood, the There is this further analogy; as the plant ark was landed within an inland basin which has which has been nurtured in the green-house acince had no connection by water with the ocean. quires the power to withstand the vicissitudes of The promised land of the Israelites is another the open field, the conditions of the nursery benland basin. It is so good, that as a special come less and less adapted to its habits and the nark of Divine favor, Moses was permitted to promotion of its vegetable health. It cannot,

VOL. XV-57

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