Rubber and Coffee Land

MOUNTAINS make rivers. If a continent were flat—absolutely flat and level like a table—there would be no rivers. Rain falling would run off the continent like water poured on a table. The water running off the Andes Mountains makes the greatest river in the World—not the longest, but the biggest. The name of this river also begins with an “A.” It is called the Amazon. On the map the Amazon looks like a vine with many branches. It gets so broad and wide as it goes on that you cannot see across it. The Amazon empties more water into the ocean than any other river

You may wonder why, with all the big rivers in the World pouring water into the ocean all the time, the ocean does not fill up and run over as a bathtub would fill up and run over if you left the water running into it all the time. It is because the water in the ocean is always turning into vapor, rising high into the air and making clouds. The clouds rise over the sea, then blow over the land, then turn to rain: the rain falls on the ground, a great part of it is taken up by trees and plants but the rest runs into the rivers, the rivers flow into the ocean and then the same thing goes on over and over again—rivers, ocean; ocean, clouds; clouds, land; land, rivers; rivers, ocean; ocean, clouds, and so on forever and ever. No water is ever lost in the World. It may be in a different place, but there is never any more nor any less water in the World than ever has or ever will be.

All the great rivers in South America flow into the Atlantic Ocean—none flows into the Pacific, because the Andes Mountains lie so close to the Pacific edge there is no room for great rivers on that side.

The Amazon runs through a country by the name of Brazil. Brazil is the biggest country in South America. It is bigger than the whole of our United States! People called the country Brazil after a tree growing there. The brazil-tree is used for making a colored dye. But it would have been more fitting if the country had been named “Rubber” or “Coffee,” for more rubber-trees and coffee-trees grow in Brazil than do brazil-trees.