How terrible were the sufferings of Gonzalo Pizarro and his companions, who set forth in youth and vigor to explore the valley of the Amazon! How worn and haggard the survivors returned to Quito, leaving some of the daring cavaliers of Spain to bleach in death on the wild plain, or to moulder in the lonely glen! No river has sadder chronicles of suffering and danger than the Amazon. Still, the exploration, so hazardous, yet of such vast value, will go on. Many a hero in the great war with nature will follow the track of Herndon, the noble man as well as the brave explorer, who escaped the perils of the great river, only to sink, with his manly heart, into the great deep. In science as in war, ranks after ranks may fall; but the living press on to fill the vacant places. The squadrons are ever full and eager for service. To search new lands through and through, or to drag old cities from the graves of centuries, men will advance as heroically as an army moves to the capture of Chapultepec. Not a flower can breathe forth its fragrance, though in marshes full of venomous serpents and of as deadly malaria, but science will count its leaves, and copy with unerring pencil the softest tints that stain them with varied bloom and beauty. Science will detect every kind of rock in the structure of the most defiant crag. Not a bird can chant or build its nest in the most leafy shade, but science will find the nest, describe every change of color on the feathers of the little singer, and set to music every tone that gushes from its tiny throat. Not a gem can repose safe from seizure, in the rocks, in the sand, or in the torrent. Not a star can twinkle in the abyss of night, but science will tell its rate of light, and describe its silent and mysterious orbit. Torrid heat, the earthquake, the tornado, the pestilence, mountains of ice, craters of flame--science will dare them all, to know one more law of nature. God speed the daring of science, if only her votaries will not place the law in the place of Him who made both it and the works which it was commissioned to guide. Science, when she has found the highest and the most comprehensive law of nature, has not touched Deity itself; she has but touched the hem of the garment of the Great Lawgiver.