Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/318

 28b PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF

Martius calculates that 500,000 cubic feet of water per second pass Obidos. This agrees pretty well with my own calculations of the quantity in the dry season ; when the river is full, it is probably much greater. If we suppose, on a moderate calculation, that seventy-two inches, or six feet, of rain fall annually over the whole Amazon valley, it will amount to 1,500,000 cubic feet per second, the whole of which must either evaporate, or flow out of the mouth of the Amazon ; so that if we increase the amount given by Martius by one half, to take in the lower part of the Amazon and to allow for the whole year, we shall have the evaporation as one half of the rain falling annually.

It is a fact which has been frequently stated, and which seems fully established, that the Amazon carries its fresh waters out into the ocean, which it discolours for a distance of a hundred and fifty miles from its mouth. It is also generally stated that the tide flows up the river as far as Obidos, five hundred miles from the mouth. These two statements appear irreconcilable, for it is not easy to understand how the tides can flow up to such a great distance, and yet no salt water enter the river. But the fact appears to be, that the tide never does flow up the river at all. The water of the Amazon rises, but during the flood as well as the ebb the current is running rapidly down. This takes place even at the very mouth of the river, for at the island of Mexiana, exposed to the open sea, the water is always quite fresh, and is used for drinking all the year round. But as salt water is heavier than fresh, it might flow up at the bottom, while the river continued to pour down above it ; though it is difficult to conceive how this could take place to any extent without some salt water appearing at the margins.

The rising of the water so far up the river can easily be explained, and goes to prove also that the slope of the river up to where the tide has any influence cannot be great ; for as the waters of the ocean rose, the river would of course be banked up, the velocity of its current still forcing its waters onward ; but it is not easy to see how the stream could be thus elevated to a higher level than the waters of the ocean which caused the rise, and we should therefore suppose that at Obidos, where the tidal rise ceases to be felt, the river is just higher than the surface of the ocean at the highest spring-tides,