Note 18 — Chapter II · RIO DE JANEIRO AND ITS ENVIRONS.—JUIZ DE FORA.

This road, which is but the beginning of railroad travel in Brazil, opens a rich prospect for scientific study. From this time forward the difficulty of transporting collections from the interior to the seaboard will be diminishing. Instead of the few small specimens of tropical vegetation now preserved in our museums, I hope that hereafter, in every school where geology and palæontology are taught, we shall have large stems and portions of trunks to show the structure of palms, tree-ferns, and the like,—trees which represent in modern times the ancient geological forests. The time is coming when our text-books of botany and zoölogy will lose their local, limited character, and present comprehensive pictures of Nature in all her phases. Then only will it be possible to make true and pertinent comparisons between the condition of the earth in former times and its present aspect under different zones and climates. To this day the fundamental principle guiding our identification of geological formations in different ages rests upon the assumption that each period has had one character throughout; whereas the progress of geology is daily pressing upon us the evidence that at each period different latitudes and different continents have always had their characteristic animals and plants, if not as diversified as now, at least varied enough to exclude the idea of uniformity. Not only do I look for a vast improvement in our collections with improved methods of travel and transportation in Brazil, but I hope that scientific journeys in the tropics will cease to be occasional events in the progress and civilization of nations, and will be as much within the reach of every student as journeys in the temperate zone have hitherto been. For further details respecting the building of this road, see Appendix No. IV.—L. A.