PALMS ON THE MIDDLE AMAZON.

THE

ANDES AND THE AMAZON:

OR,

ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF SOUTH AMERICA.

By JAMES ORTON, M.A.

PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN VASSAR COLLEGE, POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA.

WITH A NEW MAP OF EQUATORIAL AMERICA AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.

NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN SQUARE
1870.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.

TO

CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S.,

WHOSE PROFOUND RESEARCHES
HAVE THROWN SO MUCH LIGHT UPON EVERY DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE,
AND
WHOSE CHARMING "VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE" HAS SO PLEASANTLY
ASSOCIATED HIS NAME WITH OUR SOUTHERN CONTINENT,
THESE SKETCHES OF THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON ARE, BY PERMISSION,
MOST RESPECTFULLY
Dedicated.

Preface
Introduction
Table of Contents
Table of Appendices
Table of Illustrations
THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON.
Addenda
Index
Footnotes

PREFACE.

This volume is one result of a scientific expedition to the equatorial Andes and the river Amazon. The expedition was made under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, and consisted of the following gentlemen besides the writer: Colonel Staunton, of Ingham University, Leroy, N.Y.; F.S. Williams, Esq., of Albany, N.Y.; and Messrs. P.V. Myers and A. Bushnell, of Williams College. We sailed from New York July 1, 1867; and, after crossing the Isthmus of Panama and touching at Paita, Peru, our general route was from Guayaquil to Quito, over the Eastern Cordillera; thence over the Western Cordillera, and through the forest on foot to Napo; down the Rio Napo by canoe to Pebas, on the Marañon; and thence by steamer to Pará.[1]

Nearly the entire region traversed by the expedition is strangely misrepresented by the most recent geographical works. On the Andes of Ecuador we have little besides the travels of Humboldt; on the Napo, nothing; while the Marañon is less known to North Americans than the Nile.

Many of the following pages first appeared in the New York Evening Post. The author has also published "Physical Observations on the Andes and the Amazon" and "Geological Notes on the Ecuadorian Andes" in the American Journal of Science, an article on the great earthquake of 1868 in the Rochester Democrat, and a paper On the Valley of the Amazon read before the American Association at Salem. These papers have been revised and extended, though the popular form has been retained. It has been the effort of the writer to present a condensed but faithful picture of the physical aspect, the resources, and the inhabitants of this vast country, which is destined to become an important field for commercial enterprise. For detailed descriptions of the collections in natural history, the scientific reader is referred to the various reports of the following gentlemen, to whom the specimens were committed by the Smithsonian Institution:

Many of the type specimens are deposited in the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science, the Boston Society of Natural History, the Peabody Academy of Science, and Vassar College; but the bulk of the collection