ctly from the stem, is one of the
characteristic features of the _virgem_ [or solid soil] on which it
often forms dense thickets, which are all the more impenetrable that the
boughs--exhibiting frequently at the same time the small reddish flowers
and the ripe golden fruit, in which the seeds lie embedded in a sweet
white marrow--bend to the ground and there take root again.

But the india-rubber and the cacao are not the only treasures worth
collecting in these forests. Even now the export of the Para nuts, the
fruit of the _Bertholletia excelsa_, yields an annual revenue of two
hundred thousand dollars; and the copaiba oil and the urucu, the seeds
of the _Bixa orellana_, used for dyeing, about one hundred thousand
dollars. These sums seem small enough, it is true, but there are perhaps
a hundred times those values of the rich-flavored nuts rotting unheeded
in the forests, and above a score of other rich oily seeds, at present
collected only for the use of the natives, not to mention several resins
which yield the finest varnishes, plants giving the most brilliant hues,
and others with fibres that would serve not only for the finest
weavings, but also for the strongest ropes; besides about forty of the
most indispensable drugs, all which might become most valuable articles
of export....

Notwithstanding the fertility of tropical vegetation, I doubt whether
any other part of the world, in the same latitude, can offer as great a
number of useful plants as does the Amazon Valley; and now, when
all-transforming steam is about to open up to us this rich emporium,
European industry should take advantage of the hitherto neglected
treasures. What might not be done with the fibres, some of which surpass
our hemp and flax in all respects? The curaua, for example, a sort of
wild pine-apple, gives a delicate transparent flax of a silky lustre,
such as is used in the Philippine Islands, on a large scale, it
appears. It is sold under the name of _palha_ at Rio de Janeiro. The
tucum and the javary would make excellent ropes, cords, nets, etc., well
calculated to resist moisture and rot; and the piassaba, the murity,
etc., would readily supply solid brushes, brooms, hammocks, hats,
baskets, mats; while the snow-white bast of others would give excellent
paper.

The lianas or cipos of these countries are, besides their minor uses,
quite indispensable to the half-civilized natives for the construction
of their light cottages, taking t