Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1919 — THE MIGHTY AMAZON. [ARTICLE]

THE MIGHTY AMAZON.

The school boys are still discussing the Amazon, appsfrently. At least some one writes us, without signing his name, to know "why the Amazon -is called the greatest river in the world, when ’ the Mississippi river is still on the map," and we sup-

pose the writer is a school 'boy. The Amazon is called the greatest river in the world, because It is. The Missouri and the Mississippi combined form a river of greater length but they do not drain so much territory and are not nearly so great in volume. The Amazon drains 2,500,000 square miles of territory, end its estimated length Is 3,500 miles — which makes a considerable river. As for Its volume, there Is nothing else comparable with it In the whole wide world. It is 200 miles wide at its mouth. A thousand miles from the eea it is four miles in width. Two thousand miles from its mouth it is dlill more than a mile wide —wider than the Mississippi river at New Orleans. But, still more otartllng, the Amazon and its tributaries are navigable for 30,000 miles; that is, the total navigable length of the streams making up the Amazon is 30,000 miles. And, better still, we are going to hear a great deal more about the river in the future than we have ever heard in the /past. The great basin of the Amazon can be mad*to feed and clothe the world. It has never been developed, but it is known that there is no other such productive area in the world, and now that the world is hungrier than it has ever been; now that the war is at an end, giving people a chance to think of something else, the great Amazon elver basin is going to be explored and brougnt into use for the happiness of mankind.—Columbus Dispatch.