ork of intersecting streams is woven by the
gigantic warp and woof of these mountains. Many brooks, stealing along,
scarcely heard, over the table-lands, and many fierce torrents, dashing
wildly through rocky crevices, fill the great streams that roll, some
into the Caribbean Sea, some into the near Pacific; while one, the
mighty Amazon, stretches across the continent for more than three
thousand miles, and swells the Atlantic with the torrents of the Andes.
The keel of a vessel entering the Amazon from the Atlantic, may cut
through waters that once fell as flakes of snow on the most western
ridges of the Andes, and glistened with the last rays of the sun as he
sank in the Pacific.

A spell of fascination hangs about the Amazon. Its wonders, known and
unknown, have a marvellous attraction; and the perils encountered in its
exploration give a throb of interest to its very name.

How terrible were the sufferings of Gonzalo Pizarro and his companions,
who set forth in youth and vigor to explore the valley of the Amazon!
How worn and haggard the survivors returned to Quito, leaving some of
the daring cavaliers of Spain to bleach in death on the wild plain, or
to moulder in the lonely glen! No river has sadder chronicles of
suffering and danger than the Amazon. Still, the exploration, so
hazardous, yet of such vast value, will go on. Many a hero in the great
war with nature will follow the track of Herndon, the noble man as well
as the brave explorer, who escaped the perils of the great river, only
to sink, with his manly heart, into the great deep.

In science as in war, ranks after ranks may fall; but the living press
on to fill the vacant places. The squadrons are ever full and eager for
service. To search new lands through and through, or to drag old cities
from the graves of centuries, men will advance as heroically as an army
moves to the capture of Chapultepec. Not a flower can breathe forth its
fragrance, though in marshes full of venomous serpents and of as deadly
malaria, but science will count its leaves, and copy with unerring
pencil the softest tints that stain them with varied bloom and beauty.
Science will detect every kind of rock in the structure of the most
defiant crag. Not a bird can chant or build its nest in the most leafy
shade, but science will find the nest, describe every change of color on
the feathers of the little singer, and set to music every tone that
gushes from its tiny throat. Not a gem c