The Parà and San Francisco are the chief Brazilian rivers: both rise on the table-land; the former results from the union of the Tocantins and Araguay; it descends from the high lands in rapids in its northerly course, and, after running 1500 miles, joins the southern branch of the Amazons before entering the Atlantic south of the island of Marajo. The San Francisco is only 1275 miles long: it rises in the Sierra Canastra in the province of Minas Geraes, and, after travelling northward between mountain ranges parallel to the coast, it breaks through them and reaches the ocean about the 11th degree of S. lat. As in the Appalachian chain, so here, many rivers come down the edge of the table-land to the level maritime plains of the Atlantic. The historical renown and the high civilization of Asia and Europe, their great wealth and population, may be attributed in a very great degree to the facility of transport afforded by their admirable river systems, and still more to the genius of the people who knew how to avail themselves of them; the same may be said of the inhabitants of the United States of America, while the Indians who have possessed these countries for ages never took advantage of the noble streams with which Providence had enriched and embellished them. RIVERS OF NEW HOLLAND. After America, the land of the river and the flood, New Holland appears in more than its usual aridity. The absence of large rivers is one of the greatest impediments to the improvement of this continent. What it may possess in the interior is not known, but it is certain that no large river discharges its water into the ocean, and most of the small ones are absorbed before they reach it. The streams from the mountains on the eastern side of the continent are mere torrents, and would have short courses did they not run in longitudinal valleys, as, for example, the Hawkesbury. The Murumbidgee, the Lachlan, and the Macquarrie, formed by the accumulation of mountain-torrents, are the largest. The Murumbidgee rises in the ranges west of St. George’s Lake, and, running south-west, meets the Lachlan, of unknown origin, coming from the east. After their junction they run into the Murray, a much larger stream, though only 350 feet broad, and not more than 20 feet deep: before entering the ocean in Encounter Bay, it passes through the Alexandrine Marsh: it is too shallow even for boats. The Darling is supposed to be merely the upper part of the Murray, probably rising towards the head of St. Vincent’s Gulf. The origin of the Macquarrie is unknown: it is called the Fish River between Bathurst and Sydney; after running 600 miles north-west it is lost in the marshes.