Slow Signal Fade ebooks

The uniformly small but elegantly-leaved exogenous
trees, which constitute the mass of the forest, consist in great
part of members of the Laurel, Myrtle, Bignoniaceous, and
Rubiaceous orders. The soil is generally a stiff loam, whose
chief component part is the Tabatinga clay, which also forms low
cliffs on the coast in some places, where it overlies strata of
coarse sandstone. This kind of soil and the same geological
formation prevail, as we have seen, in many places on the banks
of the Amazons, so that the great contrast in the forest-clothing
of the two rivers cannot arise from this cause.
The forest was very pleasant for rambling. In some directions
broad pathways led down gentle slopes, through what one might
fancy were interminable shrubberies of evergreens, to moist
hollows where springs of water bubbled up, or shallowbrooks ran
over their beds of clean white sand. But the most beautiful road
was one that ran through the heart of the forest to a waterfall,
which the citizens of Barra consider as the chief natural
curiosity of their neighbourhood.


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