Minas Basin

“ But a love-lit soul pure as snow,—
Beckon me an angel of light.
A body of beauty is mine.
O poet, moulder of me,
Inbreathe with breathings divine,
Or body alone let it be.
[Pg xi]
CONTENTS.
[Pg 15]
AT MINAS BASIN.
About the buried feet of Blomidon,
Red-breasted sphinx with crown of grey and green,
The tides of Minas swirl,—their veilëd queen
Fleet-oared from far by galleys of the sun.
The tidal breeze blows its divinest gale!
The blue air winks with life like beaded wine!—
Storied of Glooscap, of Evangeline—
Each to the setting sun this sea did sail. ”

“ Here also he held a wonderful feast with another giant; and, ordinary fish not sufficing to satisfy their enormous appetites, the two embarked in a stone canoe, sailed out into the Great Lake of Uniras, as they called the Basin, and there speared a whale, which they brought to the shore and devoured at short notice. The approach of the white man causing the Indian giant to desert his old haunts, he sailed out on the great water and vanished from sight; but some day, when men and animals live together in peace and friendship, he will return and resume his royal sway on the Basin of Minas. ”

“ The rock is solitary, and nearly two hundred feet high at low water,—a seated figure strongly resembling, as seen from the Basin, Lord Tennyson in his old age—with his cloak about him.
32. Glooscap.—The divine man of the Micmac Indians. His home was on the shores of the Basin of Minas, particularly at Partridge Island, the Five Islands, and Blomidon. He sailed away "into the west," because of the wickedness of men and beasts, not to return till they should heed his voice. ”

“ Of the great inland region, which includes the arid campos of the north, the partially-wooded plateaus of Minas Geraes, Goyaz and Matto Grosso, the temperate highlands of the south, and the tropical lowlands of the Paraguay basin, no adequate description can be given without taking each section in detail, which can be done to better advantage in describing the individual states. In general, the carrasco growth extends over the whole central plateau, and heavy forests are found only in the deep river valleys. Those opening northward have the characteristic flora of the Amazon basin. ”

“ It is caused by the condensation of the invisible vapor of the air resting on the dyked lands—the former sea-bed. As the condensed vapor lies close upon the ground, the illusion of a full sea is complete in the moonlight, the shore line and creeks being perfectly traced.
28. The title deeds of these rich shores are thine.—Geologists affirm that Partridge Island is older than the mainland, or than the other islands mentioned.
29. Tennyson Rock.—This rock is the pinnacle of Pinnacle Island (one of the Five Islands, Basin of Minas) . ”

“ We see a cluster of wonders, from the hot springs of Agua Caliente post-house to the frozen peaks of the Sorata; extremes of heat and cold, large mountains, and small streams, dry winds, and lakes of water, in the richest gold region of South America.
The Beni creeps along the ridge of mountains as though seeking an outlet to the north. A passage letting the water through into the Amazon basin at the base of the Andes would probably make the Beni a tributary of the Madre-de-Dios, as it is erroneously laid down on some maps. ”

“ It is reversing the natural order of things to give results without the investigations which have led to them; and I should not have introduced the subject here except to show that the fresh-water denudations and the oceanic encroachments which have formed the Amazonian Valley, with its river system, are not isolated facts, but that the process has been the same in both continents. The extraordinary continuity and uniformity of the Amazonian deposits are due to the immense size of the basin enclosed, and the identity of the materials contained in it. ”

“ The banks of the stream and of its side channels are everywhere covered with a dense forest. The valley, however, is not all forest-covered. From near the Oyapok on the Guyana frontier a series of open grassy campos, interrupted only by the wooded banks of streams, follow along the north side of the Amazon for about 500 m. and extend into British Guiana and the region of the headwaters of Rio Branco. The upper Amazon basin opens broadly northward connecting with the Orinoco drainage across a low watershed, while on the south it is separated by a low divide from the Paraguay basin. ”

“ Of the history of the Amazonian Valley during the periods immediately following the Cretaceous, we know little or nothing. Whether the Tertiary deposits are hidden under the more modern ones, or whether they are wholly wanting, the basin having, perhaps, been raised above the sea-level before that time, or whether they have been swept away by the tremendous inundations in the valley, which have certainly destroyed a great part of the cretaceous deposit, they have never been observed in any part of the Amazonian basin. ”

“ Cochabamba, Bolivia, lies 8,000 feet above sea level in a broad basin in the Eastern Andes. The Cerro de Tunari, on the northwest, has a snow and ice cover for part of the year. The tropical forests lie only a single long day’s journey to the northeast. Yet the basin is dry on account of an eastern front range that keeps out the rain-bearing trade winds. The Rio Grande has here cut a deep valley by a roundabout course from the mountains to the plains so that access to the region is over bordering elevations. The basin is chiefly of structural origin. ”

“ Satisfactory as was the evidence of the high continental elevation to the east, the Central American region now appears as a barrier against its former drainage to the Pacific, thus producing inclosed sea basins. On a smaller scale, there is a perfect analogy in the basin of Lake Ontario, which is only the valley of the St. Lawrence, mostly closed by warping of the earth's crust so as to raise up a barrier of several hundred feet in place of thousands of feet, as is the case in Central America. ”

“ This resemblance has, no doubt, led to the identification of the Amazonian deposits with the more ancient formations of Europe. At Monte Alégre, of which I shall presently speak more in detail, such a clay bed divides the lower from the upper sandstone. The thickness of these sandstones is extremely variable. In the basin of the Amazons proper, they hardly rise anywhere above the level of high water during the rainy season; while at low water, in the summer months, they may be observed everywhere along the river-banks. ”

“ If half that geologists have said of Brazil is true, this country is destined to become one of the greatest mining regions of the Americas; it has an extraordinary variety of minerals, but their location in the interior where little transportation exists, added to the restraining influences of archaic mining laws, has checked enterprise. Before the European War began plans were well under way for development of important iron mines in Minas Geraes by an English company, but work is in abeyance at present. ”

“ As the Canard region become populated, crossings were made to reach the villages at low tide over the Cornwallis River. A road was made connecting the up-river settlements with Grand-Pré to the Gaspereau, where the principal centre of Minas developed, with its church, its protected landing-place and port for vessels, its store-house, and the office of the Deputy, where deeds and important documents were kept. ”

“ The diversity of scenery in the Great Basin is increased by mountains of volcanic origin, including several modern craters, some of which hold lakes, and by lava-flows of recent date, and by great alluvial fans or detritus cones which stream out into the valleys from the mouths of gorges in the bordering mountains.
The Great Basin proper, with its rugged topography and arid climate, is not an agricultural region. Small portions of it, however, when water can be had for irrigation, have been transformed into fruitful farms and gardens which yield bountiful returns. ”

“ The terraces can be worked at all seasons, and the material is partly washed out by leading streams on to it. The washing of the plateau material is effected in reservoirs of rain water.
It is difficult to obtain an estimate of the actual production of the Minas Geraes mines, for no official returns have been published, but in recent years it has certainly been rivalled by the yield in Bahia. The diamond here occurs in river gravels and sands associated with the same minerals as in Minas Geraes ”

“ The train next set me down at Caxambú, another of the watering-places on the irregular line across southwestern Minas, where the rolling country from the Plata northward begins to break up almost into mountains and produces a stratum of hot and cold mineral springs. Huge hotels accommodate those who come to “take the waters” in Caxambú, as in Poços de Caidas not far distant, and a mineral water that sells all over Brazil at a milreis or more a small bottle is here as free as the air. ”

“ On the other hand, it seems more likely that the people who built Page 144Saylla were farmers and that when the lower Cuzco Basin was filled up by aggradation, due to increased erosion, they abandoned this site for one nearer the arable lands. One may imagine the dismay with which the agricultural residents of these ancient houses saw their beautiful fields at the bottom of the hill, covered in a few days, or even hours, by enormous quantities of coarse gravel brought down from the steep slopes of Picol after some driving rainstorm. ”

“ The hotels are comfortable, train service good, and the journey through a country of beautiful scenery and interesting people and towns.
This is the great mining State of Brazil. Of it Marie Robinson Wright says: “Few countries can boast of such an abundance and variety of mineral resources as Minas Geraes, which derives its name, signifying General Mines, from the industry that gave it existence, and which owes to this principal attraction the preponderance of its population.” ”

“ It has been my lot to cross bleak Andean passes, where there are heavy snowfalls and low temperatures, as well as to wend my way through gigantic canyons into the dense jungles of the Amazon Basin, as hot and humid a region as exists anywhere in the world. The Incas lived in a land of violent contrasts. No deserts in the world have less vegetation than those of Sihuas and Majes; no luxuriant tropical valleys have more plant life than the jungles of Conservidayoc. In Inca Land one may pass from glaciers to tree ferns within a few hours. ”

“ Evidently, then, this basin was a fresh-water basin; these deposits are fresh-water deposits. But as the Valley of the Amazons exists to-day, it is widely open to the ocean on the east, with a gentle slope from the Andes to the Atlantic, determining a powerful seaward current. When these vast accumulations took place, the basin must have been closed; otherwise the loose materials would constantly have been carried down to the ocean. ”

“ The soil of the vast Amazonian basin is mainly the alluvial deposit of decomposed vegetable life for centuries past. This sea of Pampean mud stretches from the ocean marshes up to the very heels of the mountains that stand outpost to hold the southern continent from the Pacific. Black and rich it lies in layer after layer twenty, thirty, forty feet beneath the great pall of vegetation that flourishes above during its little day, to die and drop for successive generations of arboreal life to thrive upon in their turn. ”

“ So, too, the section of the Cordilleras lying to the east of what is commonly called the Great Basin, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, has also enjoyed a long reign of peace. In glaciated countries the record is naturally less clear than in those parts of the world which have been subjected to long-continued, slow decay of the rocks. Nevertheless, in those fields boulders are often found poised in position which they could not have maintained if subjected to violent shaking. ”

“ The surface of Minas Geraes is broken by mountain ranges and deeply eroded river courses, the latter forming fertile valleys shut in by partly barren uplands, or campos. The reckless destruction of forests along the watercourses also adds to the barren aspect of the country. ”

“ The two great river basins of the Amazon-Tocantins and La Plata comprise within themselves, approximately, three-fifths of the total area of Brazil. Large areas of these great river plains are annually flooded, the flood-plains of the Amazon extending nearly across the whole country and comprising thousands of square miles. The Amazon plain is heavily forested and has a slope of less than one inch to the mile within Brazilian territory—one competent authority placing it at about one-fifth of an inch per mile. ”

“ The more he considers the Amazons and its tributaries, the more does he feel convinced that the whole mass of the reddish, homogeneous clay, which he has called drift, is the glacial deposit brought down from the Andes and worked over by the melting of the ice which transported it. According to his view, the whole valley was originally filled with this deposit, and the Amazons itself, as well as the rivers connected with it, are so many channels worn through the mass, having cut their way just as the igarapé now wears its way through the more modern deposits of mud and sand. ”

“ In the Oropesa Basin the most important ruins are those of Tipon, a pleasant, well-watered valley several hundred feet above the village of Quispicanchi. They include carefully constructed houses of characteristic Inca construction, containing many symmetrically arranged niches with stone lintels. The walls of most of the houses are of rough stones laid in clay. Tipon was probably the residence of the principal chief of the Oropesa Basin. It commands a pleasant view of the village and of the hills to the south, which to-day are covered with fields of wheat and barley. ”