Note 68 — Chapter X · THE AMAZON.

Vast, many, and great, doubtless, are the varieties of climates, soils, and productions within such a range. The importance to the world of settlement, cultivation, and commerce in the Valley of the Amazon cannot be over-estimated. With the climates of India, and of all the habitable portions of the earth, piled one above the other in quick succession, tillage and good husbandry here would transfer the productions of the East to this magnificent river-basin, and place them within a few days’ easy sail of Europe and the United States. Only a few miles back we had first entered the famous mining districts of Peru. A large portion of the silver which constitutes the circulation of the world was dug from the range of mountains upon which we were standing, and most of it came from that slope of them which is drained off into the Amazon. Is it possible for commerce and navigation up and down this majestic water-course and its beautiful tributaries to turn back this stream of silver from its western course to the Pacific, and conduct it, with steamers, down the Amazon to the United States, there to balance the stream of gold with which we are likely to be flooded from California and Australia?—Herndon’s Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon.