Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his “Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,” and Captain Maury, in his book “The Amazon and the Atlantic Coast of South America,” show themselves so enthusiastic over the climate of Amazonas and recommend it “as one of the healthiest and mildest in the world.” That easy enthusiasm is not so good for us as the competent French engineer, Mr. Paul Le Cointe’s opinion, after many years in the northern part of Brazil. Thus he expresses himself: “The Amazonia, an immense tableland slightly concave, situated entirely in the tropics, crossed by rivers of colossal dimensions, with lakes and swamps, the remains of the original water basin, badly separated by modern alluvium land, covered with impenetrable forests from which emerge here and there some plains, ought to have a specially hot, damp and unhealthy climate. “That is the reputation which it has enjoyed for a long time and which has frightened away the European immigration; but it is not deserved in such an absolute manner; as a hot country is perhaps on the contrary the less deadly for the settler as well as for the traveler.” THE AMAZON AS RUBBER PRODUCER It is indeed very difficult if not absolutely impossible to limit the rubber producing region of Amazonas. In almost the whole of the vast territory of that State there are found rubber trees and where they do not grow, they certainly can be successfully planted. Over large tracts of lands on the banks of rivers not navigable, there are extensive rubber forests not explored on account of lack of population. That exuberance of the Amazonian flora, that arrangement of nature to furnish resources to the rubber extractor for many years, kept him away from any other occupation except that of raising the arm and wounding the tree of fortune in order to obtain prosperity. There was no necessity of planting that which the open road of the forest presents at each step; also why worry with a view to obtaining any other process of securing the “=hevea brasiliensis=” when its milk in the primitive state is obtained at the lowest price of exploitation and cultivation, preserving all the excellent qualities of the rubber? The presence of competitors in the world’s market, more than the damage caused to the health by the smoking process of coagulation, is the reason to establish new exploitation. The rubber plantation is now being conducted perhaps without obeying the scientific criterion, but more in the shape of facilitating the gathering of the =latex=. [Illustration: RUBBER-WORKER PERREIRA AND WIFE IN THEIR SUNDAY CLOTHES.] One hears a good deal about high prices in the Amazonas, and careless observers state in opposition to that the cheapness of life in the Asiatic Islands and other points of the world. I do not think that a thoughtful person without any interest in connection with enterprises and plantations elsewhere in the world, would be able to use such an assertion, which is so unjust.