Orinoco

On the maps, the vast inland wilderness surounding the uncertain juncture of Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil gives the impression of being as well known to the world as the valley of the Mississippi. On the contrary, few white men have ever penetrated it. Here are the scenes of all sorts of fantastic romances, like Conan Doyle's The Lost World and W. H. Hudson's Green Mansions. Here is the fascinating stream called the Casiquiare, reputed to flow both ways and to connect the Rio Negro, largest northern tributary of the Amazon, with the Orinoco. Here nations have not yet ceased to dispute each other's boundaries, for no one is quite sure of what is here. To bring order out of this geographical chaos is the chief purpose of Dr. and Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice, of Manhattan and Newport, and their party of ten scientists, who sailed March 29 in quest of the headwaters of the Orinoco. Walter Hinton, naval lieutenant who once flew the NC4 across the Atlantic, and James W. Swanson, radio expert, are members of the party. Hinton will take along a big seaplane for aerial exploration and to protect the expedition against the cannibals of the region by bombing, if necessary. Previous experiences of the Rices dictated this precaution. Swanson will establish a complete broadcasting and receiving station, WJS, at Boa Vista, on the upper Rio Branco, in Brazil, near British Guiana.

Dr. Rice is a wealthy Boston physician who has devoted much of his life to scientific exploration, has received the medal of the Royal Geographical Society, of London. Mrs. Rice is a daughter of the late William L. Elkins, of Philadelphia, and the widow of George D. Widener, who, with their son, went down on the Titanic. She barely escaped with her life. Dr. and Mrs. Rice had their honeymoon on an expedition to the Amazon, and have spent years in the jungle since. It is Dr. Rice's sixth expedition, financed wholly by himself, and will last two years.

The sources of the Orinoco will be surveyed and mapped. The region is one of the hottest, as well as the most dangerous places on earth, infested by disease, insects, animals, savages. Mrs. Rice intends also to visit a school for Indian children at Sao Gabriel Mission, Brazil, which she established on previous trips. Under Spanish fathers, this school has metamorphosed the life of the community. The region is also a happy hunting-ground for ethnological studies. Curious native customs abound. Records of them and specimens of their culture will be collected for the Peabody Museum of Harvard. The cannibalistic tribes are strangely modern in some of their practices. Wife-beaters are abhorred, and twins are considered a disgrace to the mother who bears them.

The physiography of the Orinoco basin explains many of the curious features of the region, says Dr. Rice.