Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/266

222 land. Midway in its course the Araguaya forms the remarkable island called the Ilha Banaual or Santa Anna, which is encompassed by branches of the river 220 miles in length, and contains a central lake of 80 miles in extent. The Araguaya is navigable, but the upper Tocantins is barred by falls, and there is a rapid at some distance below their confluence round which a road has been recently made to unite the navigable portions. The Turyassu, Maranhao, and Paranahyba are the largest of the other rivers of the north-eastern slope. The last named flows for the greater part of its course of 700 miles through level swampy lands, receiving many tributaries from eastward, but few from the west ; it is without obstruc tions, and navigable for a great distance. The Sao Francisco occupies a wide enclosed basin of the eastern highland. Rising in the Serra do Espinhago and the Vertentes of Minas Geraes, it flows north and eastward in a course of 1800 miles. But for a few obstacles the greater part of the river would be navigable, since it has great volume. The chief barrier is in the Falls of Paulo ArTonso, about 1G8 miles from the sea, where the river is contracted between rocks, and plunges in a series of cascades into a narrow rock-impeded channel. Immediately below this, however, it spreads out as a broad calm river, which is regularly navigated by steamers from the Porto das Piranhas to the sea. Among the rivers of the coast slope south of the Sao Francisco the chief are the Paraguasu, the largest stream of the province of Bahia, obstructed by many falls ; the Rio de Contas or Jussiape, a considerable river in the south of the province, also innavigable ; the Belmonte or Jequitinhonha from the high mountains of Minas Geraes, interrupted by many rapids and cascades, and forming a series of magnificent falls over the eastern edge of the plateau, in which it descends at least 300 feet ; the Rio Doce or Chopot6 in the province of Espiritu Santo, afford ing a considerable length of navigation, with portages at its reefs ; and the Parahyba do Sul, flowing between the Serra da Mantiqueira and the coast range of Rio de Janeiro, navigated regularly by steamers from its mouth for 60 miles to Sao Fidelio. Though these coast streams are among the little rivers of Brazil, every one of them is two or three times the length of the Thames. The great rivers of the southern watershed are the Parang and Paraguay. The former has its rise in a broad basin, extending for a width of nearly 700 miles across southern Brazil, enclosed by the coast range of the south, the Serra da Mantiqueira, the Vertentes, and its southward interior branch running down into Paraguay. The main and longest head stream of the Parana is called the Rio Grande or Para, which rises in the Serra da Mantiqueira, one of its sources being on the slope of Itatiaiossii, the highest point of the whole empire, 110 miles north-west of Rio de Janeiro. The Paranahyba joins the Grande on the right from the Pireneos range in the north, and further on the Parana-Panerna, with its tributary the Tibagy, comes in on the left bank from the inner slopes of the south coast range ; the Rio Pardo, Jvinhima, and Igatimi are smaller tributaries on the left bank from the interior ranges. After the con fluence of the Grande and Paranahyba the Parana takes its proper name and flows southward out of Brazil in forming the limit between the empire and the republic of Paraguay. The fall of Urubupunga, 40 miles below the confluence of the Grande and Paranahyba, is an obstacle to the navigation of the upper river ; but thence to the great &quot; salto&quot; of Guayrd on the frontier of Paraguay, in 24 S., it is freely navigable. The fall of Guayra, Sete- quedas, or Seven Falls, is the greatest cataract of Brazil. Immediately above it and below the large island which the ParanA fowns between 23 and 24 the river is about 2 miles in width ; its channel is contracted first in passing through a diagonal line of seven islands which stretches across it, and then between the walls of a rocky gorge only 65 yards in breadth, into which the whole mass of water plunges with terrific fury, descending over a slope inclined about 50, and for a perpendicular height of about 60 feet. The roaring of the cataract may be heard for many leagues round. Below the fall, the river rushes down in a narrow bed with high cliff-like banks, only becoming less rapid and navigable with difficulty as it leaves the Brazilian frontier at the confluence of the Y-Guasii. This tributary, also named the Curityba, has a westward course to the Parana, from many heads in the inner side of the south coast range, and like all the tributaries of the Parana between it and the great fall, descends into the deep gorge of the main river by a fine waterfall of 66 feet. The River Paraguay, the upper basin of which lies in a much lower region of the continent, in the south-western in terior of Brazil, is far superior to the Parana in respect of its navigable qualities, and in the grand natural outlet it affords to the southward. Its sources are in several small lakes on the southern slope of the Serra das Vertentes, between 13 and 14 S., immediately opposite the head streams of the Tapajos, and it flows thence southward, fed by many lateral streams from the range. Its important tributary the Cuyaba, or Sao Lourengo, rises not far east of the Paraguay, but does not join it until both have passed about 400 miles south. The Taquari, the Mondego, and the Apa, the boun dary river of Brazil and Paraguay, are important tribu taries from the range which divides the basins of the Paraguay and Parana ; and from the hills of eastern Bolivia the San Juan and Bahia Negra join the Paraguay on the right bank. Throughout its course the Paraguay affords uninterrupted navigation, and is regularly traversed by large Brazilian steamers from the Rio de la Plata to Curumba, in the province of Matto Grosso, a distance of about 1000 miles in a direct line from Buenos Ayres. Thence smaller vessels carry on a regular traffic for 300 miles further, by the Sao Lourengo tributary, to Cuyaba in the very heart of inner Brazil. An immense tract of the low country on each side of the upper Paraguay, called the Xarayes, between 17 and 19 lat., is subject to inundation in times of flood. While the Amazon begins to rise in February or March, and is at its highest flood in June, the Parana is irregular in its risings, but has its greatest volume in December, and the Paraguay again, regularly swelling and falling, is highest in June.

The surface of Brazil in respect to its elevation is divided into the higher region of plateaus, ridges, and broad open valleys, occupying the whole of the country south of the parallel of Cape S. Roque, and the vast lowland plain of the Amazon, extending inland to the base of the Andes of Peru, Equador, and Columbia, and rising again in the extreme north to the ranges which form the boundary with Venezuela and Guiana.

The nucleus of the mountains and plateaus of southern Brazil is not centrally placed, but is formed by the chains named the Serra da Mantiqueira and Serra do Espinhago, which extend between 18 and 23 south lat., at a varying distance of from 100 to 200 miles from the south-east coast. These arc the highest and most important mountains of Brazil, from which the oth^r ranges and plateaus radiato outwards north, west, and south ; one of the summits of the Serra da Mantiqueira is the Pico do Itatiaiossu, which is almost certainly the culminating point of Brazil, but the elevation of its peak has been very variously estimated and measured at from 6250 to 8900 and 10,300 feet. Itacolumi, near the town of Ouro Preto, reaching about 5700 feet, and Ifcambe in the north of the Serra do Espinhago, 4300 