primitive, and crowded canoe passed into the Madeira River on October 11, 1880, having accomplished what had never before been recorded.

The little expedition returned to Reyes by ascending the Mamore, a distance of 325 miles, to Exaltacion, which was reached on November 5, finally arriving at Reyes on December 11, 1880. The results of the exploration were at once evident. Mysterious horrors were dissipated; a practical route from the rubber territory of the interior was developed, and trade was expanded a hundredfold within a year.

One of the mysteries of exploration is that so many hardy adventurers escaped from the danger of navigating these treacherous inland rivers and brought back with them accurate information of what they saw and found. Dr. Heath descended the Beni River in a dugout, the conditions being as primitive as could be described, yet his data stand the exacting test of to-day. But the description of the boat must be given in his own words:

"In the stern sat Ildefonso with his paddle. In the bow sat Sebastian, while the center was occupied by our oxhide of farinha projecting some 15 inches above the boat. I sat behind this with compass, paper, and pencil, alternately using my paddle and pencil. When we were all in the boat we were only 4 inches above the water. The boat was 15 feet long by about 4 feet wide, water-soaked, partly rotten, cracks being calked with corn husks and pitched with clay."

In 1882 Dr. Heath began the ascent of the upper stretch of the Beni River, a rather well-known and traveled route, however, but he wished to demonstrate that the whole river from its mouth in the Madre de Dios to its origin, not far from La Paz, was available. He was successful in this as in the previous trip, and arrived at La Paz in safety, having been from April 26 to July 25 on the trip. The Bolivian Government received him with expressions of gratitude for what he had accomplished.

Dr. Heath, after this last expedition, returned to the United States and resumed the routine practice of his profession. He now lives in

Kansas City, Kansas.

In addition to his medical work he has the position as consul for the Republic of Nicaragua, as well as for the Republics of Guatemala, Honduras, and Boliva. He is still a vigorous, hearty man, keenly enjoying life and glad that his early years could have been devoted to such a worthy cause, in which he himself derived such pleasure.

The River Heath is now, as has been said, the boundary between Peru and Bolivia. East of that river, from the Andes to the Beni and Madre de Dios, are some 35,000 square miles. This country

forms an extensive triangle, in the south of which are meager trading and mission villages, to the north are a few rubber settlements, but the vast stretches between these extremities are unexplored and peopled by savages. That was the case even in the days of the Incas, and those sturdy inhabitants of the mountains pushed an expedition into this tropical wilderness, only to meet defeat quite as much through climate as otherwise, but they left their trace in unlocated fortresses and plainly evident roads. This region rivals that of the plateau of Santa Fe de Bogota in Colombia as the home of the mysterious gilded man (El Dorado), and many brave but foolhardy adventurers have lost their lives in the search for it.

Maj. P. H. Fawcett, of the British Army (The Geographical Journal, April, 1911), explored some of it in 1910 while establishing the boundary line, but even he asserts that there still remain at least 10,000 square miles into which it is believed no white man has ever entered. These forest areas were in earlier times thickly populated, but they are to-day almost deserted except for the few remaining Indians who, rendered suspicious by the long-continued aggressions of rubber exploiters and trading adventurers, maintain an effectual campaign against further exploration. Yet this hostility is not deep seated; it can be overcome and their emnity turned to friendship by honest, fair, and fearless treatment of them. These native wild men are clever, their knowledge of their forests is profound, and when they are finally made to trust the white man it can be utilized most effectively to the advantage of scientific investigation.

This fascinating field is the region toward which the River Heath promises to be the highway. It is still full of the early but disappearing romance of the original conquistadores. The edges of the Andean slope have abundant gold; the whole country is rich in rubber, in the resources of the untrodden Tropics, in the innumerable diversities of animal and vegetable life; in all those phases of the unknown which stimulate man's curiosity and ambition to such a wonderful degree, distinguishing him thereby from the unproductive savage. The English, German, Spanish, and indeed the Bolivians, Peruvians, and other inhabitants of the mountain plateaus have accomplished much to break open the barriers of this mysterious wilderness,

but practically the very first white man to demonstrate the possibility and the value of reclaiming this peculiarly isolated region of South America was a native of the United States, Dr. Edwin Ruthven Heath.

THE BETTER CLASS OF BOATS USED IN THE AMAZON BASIN.

The little boat in which the Indian is seated is like the one used by Dr. Heath on some of his exploring expeditions.

Below is quoted an extract from Dr. Heath's observations which shows how close was the division between life and death on one of his experiences. They were proceeding upstream, with all their possessions in the one little boat, and came to a series of rapids:

"Ildefonso had the bowline, Sebastian the stern line, and I was in the water to keep the boat from the rock. Ildefonso, when he was on the projecting rock, becoming bolder, began to pull and we could not hold the boat. As soon as the boat struck the fall it reared and then plunged out of sight. Fortunately I caught the stern line and took a couple of turns around a bowlder, and thus we drew it to the shore, but our paddles and oxhide of food were in the whirlpool. When the current, turned by the projecting rock, rushed against the opposite shore, it would crest over, and falling would flow back and fill the hole in the whirlpool; then the hole would re-form and my oxhide and paddles would disappear.

"While my Indians were bailing out the boat. I divested myself of clothing, started for the whirlpool, and when about halfway my Indians saw me and cried out in horror, 'Come back! for God's sake, come back!' but I kept on, watching the reappearance of the oxhide. As soon as it came to the surface, I caught hold of it, swimming and pulling so that we reached the edge of the hole, but the look into the pit was terrifying, indeed. Once far enough from the hole I got behind it and pushed it ashore. After my Indians had received the oxhide I was carried three times round before I could land. Resting, I returned and brought my two paddles. The thin paddle being freshly made sank like iron. I looked around to see how I could get another. All our axes and machetes being at the bottom of the river, I could not cut down a tree to make one. Fortunately I found a log in proper length for a paddle, but cracked. This I rolled into the fire and charred it, and scraped off the charred part with a stone, and again burned it. In time I had a paddle."

TRADE IN 1910--A GEN-
ERAL SURVEY

General foreign trade of Latin America for 1910.

246, 206, 722

341,217,536
18, 135,000

235,574,837
108,582,279
17,025,637
8,024, 105
5,374,837
22,508,021

295,346, 029

385, 430,012

24,868, 142 308, 331,829 111,846, 917 16,040, 198 12,439,400 4,957,055 31,554,376 46,907,559 16,028,635

38,643,034

Venezuela.

9.766, 182

42,796, 706
12,387,552

America.... 887,224,083 1,057,833,232 1,253,750,152 1,285,910,798 2,140,974,235 | 2.343,744,030

1 Fiscal year ending June 30. 2.1908.

T

HE foreign commerce of the 20 Latin American Republics for the year 1910 amounted to $2,343,744,030, an increase of $202,769,795 over the preceding year. The population of these countries from the best obtainable data-estimates for about one-half the Republics and probably in such case too large amounts to 73,666,028. Accepting the total of population as given, the foreign commerce of Latin America for 1910 amounted to $31.81 per capita. The foreign commerce of the United States for the same year amounted to $3,427,415,895. On the basis of 92,174,515 population, the per capita foreign trade of the United States was $37.18, only $5.37 greater than that of Latin America. The imports of Latin America were $1,057,833,232, and of the United States $1,562,924,251. The exports of Latin America were $1,285,910,798, and of the United States $1,864,491,644. The Latin American per

capita of imports and exports were $14.36 and $17.46, and the United States per capita $16.96 and $20.22. In a number of the Latin American countries the per capita trade far exceeded that of the United States, i. e., Cuba, per capita of imports $48.01, of exports $69.88; of total $117.89; Argentina, imports $48.82, exports $51.72, total $100.54; Uruguay, imports $38.49, exports $38.97, total $77.46; Chile, imports $30.89, exports $34.29, total $65.18.

The fact which has the greatest interest to the commercial world of to-day and bespeaks for itself in the future a preponderating position, is the enormous and sudden rise of Latin America in the scale of commerical importance. Underlying this fact is the growing purchasing power and the great producing power of these countries, as yet but sparsely settled. With a growth in population, and with the development which is even now in progress and proportionately increasing, the commanding commercial importance of these countries is already assured.

Comparing the year 1897, just preceding the Spanish-American War, with the year 1910, Latin American foreign trade shows the following remarkable growth:

Separating the 20 Republics into two groups, the first to include. the North American countries Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, and the second South America, i. e., Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay, the following results are shown. Panama in 1897 formed a part of Colombia and must therefore for purposes of comparison in 1910 be joined to the second group.