File:Brazil, the Amazons and the coast (1879) (14596697998).jpg

Identifier: brazilamazonscoa00smit (find matches)
Title: Brazil, the Amazons and the coast
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Smith, Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington), 1851-1919
Subjects: Folklore -- Brazil Brazil -- Description and travel Brazil -- Economic conditions Amazon River Valley -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Brown University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brown University

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Forest Group. Peru, Ecuador and Colombia east of the Andes ; SouthernVenezuela; Guiana; and all of Brazil north of lat. 10° S.,and west of the River Parnahyba, with extensions as far as15° or even 20° S. In other words, if you please, the con-nected basins of the Amazons and the Orinoco. We note two things in the outset. First, the body of the12 178 BRAZIL. forest lies within ten degrees nortii or south of the equator,where rains are more or less abundant all through the year;second, it is higher and thicker and wider in the drippingwest-region ; toward the east it narrows off, and here, also,it is broken somewhat by more open tracts, sandy or stonycampos. The largest of these campos are on the northernside of the Amazons, between the river and the Guiana Moun-tains. We have seen how the trade-wind is dried by these
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Sandy Campos (Hill-sides) mountains, so the rains are less abundant on their lee. Tothe south of the Amazons there are other campos, increasingin number and size until we reach the great open table-landof Central Brazil. Besides, there are the meadows of theAmazonian flood-plain, and more extensive ones on the Ori-noco. It is not strictly correct, therefore, to speak of theforest as unbroken. Only to the westward it is really a THE FOREST. 179 continuous mass ; a circle eleven hundred miles in diametercould be drawn within its limits.* I am driven, therefore, to this conclusion. The forestdepends on the rains, as the rivers do. Forest and riversowe their existence to the moist trade-winds blowing freelyover this great plain, and meeting cold blasts from the west.The forest protects the rivers by preventing evaporation ; itincreases the rains by preventing radiation. The rivers nursethe forest, drain the ground, moisten the air. They are alljoined together, dependent on the same causes

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