MINERALOGY.--The same minerals are met with here which are found in the district of Matto Grosso. PHYTOLOGY.--There are a diversity of trees of excellent timber. Amongst other medicinal plants, is one called _espigelia_, the _herva de cobra_, (serpent herb) the _jarrinha_, and various qualities of the real _quina_, or Jesuits’ bark. Amongst other fruits of the wood, the quince is well known, the _jabuticaba_, the _ambuzo_, the _araticumo_, the _guabiraba_, and the _goyaba_. Cotton, sugar, Indian corn, mandioca, rice, and legumes, are objects of agriculture proportioned to the population. From no part of this district can the superfluity that is produced be exported with advantage, in consequence of its present tedious and intricate communication with the maritime provinces. ZOOLOGY.--Large herds of cattle are bred, as well as horses, some mules, hogs, sheep, and a very few goats, which hitherto are deemed useless. RIVERS.--The most celebrated is the Paraguay, which rises in a plain upon the serra of Pary, otherwise Lage, (a portion of the extensive Paricis,) at the situation of the Sete Lagoas, so called from an assemblage of seven lakes, generally small, a short space intervening between them, and communicating by narrow outlets. A little below the last, this river flows through a swampy country in a northerly direction for a short space, when it winds round by the west and takes a southern course. The first stream which it receives is the Diamantino, (Diamond River,) which comes from a distant source, and brings with it the Corrego Rico, (Rich Channel,) otherwise Rio do Oiro, (Gold River.) The first large river which joins it is the Jauru. Along its eastern margin, and in nearly the whole of this great extent, is a range of elevated lands, which continue twenty-five miles beyond this confluence, and terminate at the point called Escalvada, where both margins begin to be flat, and interspersed with lakes. Seventy miles below the Escalvada point, the western margin begins to be bordered by a serra of the like number of miles in length, but narrow, and broken in various parts to admit of the ingress of the waters of three lakes lying behind it, the outlets of which, thus formed, appear like large rivers, when the Paraguay at its overflowings makes them a part of its expanded channel. The northern portion of this serra is called Insua: the southern, Chaynez; and the central, Doirados. The names of the lakes are Oberaba, Gahiba, and Mandiore. The first on the north is ten miles in diameter, and its outlet contiguous to the extremity of the serra Insua, behind which it communicates with the Gahiba lake, which is a little larger and ten miles distant to the south, with its outlet, the same number of miles below the first, dividing the serra of Insua from that of Doirados.