Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1903 — COMES NEXT TO THE AMAZON. [ARTICLE]

COMES NEXT TO THE AMAZON.

Rio de la Plata and Its Vest Basin in Sooth America. The river system of the Plate, or of the Rio de la Plata, is one of the most wonderful In the world. The volume of the stream is greater than that of the Mississippi. It ia surpassed only by the Amazon. It drains a basin more than half as big aa the whole United States, and one which in fertility of soil and salubrity of climate is only surpassed by the basin of the Mississippi and it la a question whether it has not more cultivated territory. Upon it tens of millions of cattle and sheep are pastured, and lte wheat fields compete with ours lu the markets of Europe. It has the most extensive plains of the globe and it is a vast expanse of fairly good land. It Is a white man’s’ country. The basin of the Amazon is tropical and malarious. That of the Plate is largely in the temperate zona Its northern parts are like Louisiana or Florida and in the south the summer climate Is as temperate as that of the middle States. It is the Mississippi basin reversed, the source 01 its rivers being in the hot country, where there are coffee and sugar lands, and rubber trees, and its mouth in the rather cool lands of Uruguay and the Argentine, noted for their fields of wheat and corn. The vast basin is formed in the shape of a great horseshoe, with the opening toward the Atlantic, the Andre and the strip of highlands which crosses Brazil from the back "and upper rim of the shoe, while the slightly sloping plains of Patagonia -bound it on the south. In it are the best of the Argentine, all of Uruguay and Paraguay and large portions of Brazil and Bolivia. The most of it has been built up by the Parana or Rio de la Plata system, and to-day these rivers are still at their great work of earth building. You see this plainly in the Rio de la Plata proper. It is more a great bay of liquid mud tban a river, It is 120 miles wide at tbe Atlantic and narrows down to twenty-nine miles at 1 Buenos Ayres, which la 180 miles inland. The width at Montevideo is about sixtydive miles. Tbe Rio de la Plata is so full of mud that 1* discolors tbe Atlantic for many miles out at sea. We noticed tbe change in the color of the ocean long before we entered its. mouth and tbe water seemed to grow thicker as we sailed to Buenos Ayres. The channel is fast filling up with a sandy mud and the Eads jetty system is proposed. As it Is no*, tbe river brings down a quarter es a million tons of mud a day and tbe sediment is saiZWA that all tbe water need by Buenos Ayres is filtered by tbe dty. Tbe higher tbe character or rank, tbe less tbe pretense, because there Je lew to pretend to.—Bulwek.