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Leyendecker's early style -- a crosshatched brush stroke that turned soft surfaces into sharp planes -- reinforced Beach's chiseled good looks. When his dynamic crosshatching faded into softer fills, Leyendecker enhanced the manliness of his subjects in other ways: He lit a single light and oiled the muscles of his models for dramatic contouring. Decades before feminist Laura Mulvey wrote about the male gaze objectifying women, Leyendecker turned his gaze toward handsome men and created widely circulated icons of masculinity.
(Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times)

Note that these are more than just realistic hands. Leyendecker is not simply copying a photograph he likes. He records visual data about shapes and colors and shadows, but he is also seeking out nature's designs and patterns. He is establishing priorities about what "feels" right. There is elegance and poetry in these three studies that is missing from so much of photorealistic illustration.
(Text by David Apatoff at illustrationart.blogspot.com . All above images posted by David Apatoff at illustrationart.blogspot.com)

All Images above posted by David Apatoff at illustrationart.blogspot.com

Brian wrote at illustrationart.blogspot.com:
You can see JC's mastery of color, like how he plays the green in the shadows of the headscarf off of the reddish flesh tones of the woman's face and arms.
Study, study, study this! This guy never backed away from a technical challenge, but kept applying and increasing his technical ability with each piece to tackle more difficult things, such as the patterns and "feel" of clothing, or gesture, or any of a hundred other little details that go into making masterpieces.
This is the fruit of a lifetime of hard work and study (I believe he did this study in his 60's). One side note--it appears he came up with his cross-hatching painting technique from his days working as an engraver in Chicago and his drawing training in France, where smudging was not allowed for drawing--only lines.
Many people appreciate about Leyenekcer was that he used a limited palette for quite a bit of his work. In the study of the husband and wife, I see just a few colors--some kind of duller red, like an indian red, black, white, and yellow ochre. The painting of the pilgrim is very simple too, almost two colors plus white. The marching band major is cad red, yellow ochre and black plus white. His color always looked good because he got his color temperature relationships right, and he got his values and drawing right.
This is another great lesson, if you see it, and that is that color can look brilliant if you get your color temperature relationships right, not just by using very vivd colors--in fact, doing that makes it harder. He gave up something to get something else, and in the end he got what he gave up back. Ironic, but true.

Footballer
Image courtesy of Andrew Bosley
at jcleyendecker.blogspot.com

Horse Girl
Image courtesy of Andrew Bosley
at jcleyendecker.blogspot.com

Shopping
Image courtesy of Andrew Bosley
at jcleyendecker.blogspot.com

Leyendecker had a tremendous impact on other illustrators. His work is dazzling in its technical proficiency, beautifully composed and designed, and drawn with the kind of flair and refined skill that only comes to the best of the best. He would make the application of paint (supposedly with a secret proprietary oil painting medium) appear as part of the design, with strokes of color defining the form in his paintings the way hatching is used in drawings, and often allowing parts of the underpainting show through.

First Airplane Ride
Oil on canvas
Collier's, August 28, 1909, cover
From studio-international.co.uk

He was also a genius for finding “the straight within the curved”, and his figures have a sharp, crisp geometry that makes them really snap. Seemingly simple things like folds in cloth became wonders of painted design, zig-zagging valleys of carefully controlled color, highlighted with those amazing strokes of color hatching.

Florist from the Kelly Collection
©Taller 54 MMVII- 15-08

Arrow Collars and Shirts (teens and 20s)
©Taller 54 MMVII- 15-08

The parade (a pair of works)
Medium Oil on Canvas
Fine American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture
©2009 artnet - The art world online

Title Football scrimmage (a pair of works)
Canvas
Fine American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture
©2009 artnet - The art world online

Why is she kissing locked-up baby cupid?
It's so gorgeous
Posted by Josh Hollandfrom at joyengine.com

Posted by Josh Hollandfrom at joyengine.com

His hatch-work is an unmistakable stylistic motif. Note the almost Disney-like angularity of the hand pinning the medal, long before Disney.
Leyendecker reportedly worked in stages, creating many small-scale studies from which he would then construct the whole using the traditional technique of “squaring up” to transfer to the larger canvas. The American Art Archives site has a great page of his studies that is not to be missed by anyone interested in the techniques of one of the great illustrators. His painting style is unmistakably his own, shockingly and timelessly modern. His observant shaping, exaggerated anatomy, animated gestures and highly expressive brush strokes will continue to influence and inspire illustrators forever.
(Charley Parker at linesandcolors.com, Saturday, November 25, 2006)

Posted by Josh Hollandfrom at joyengine.com

A number of fully-painted "studies" like this one were done in preparation for each piece, from which he'd distill the folds and forms into very streamlined finals, removing unnecessary elements.

Kissing
Posted by Charley Parker
at linesandcolors.com

Just look at the modeling on the faces and hands, the rounded apple skin blush on the woman’s cheeks, the textures of the different types of material, the astonishing handling of the cloth folds and the geometric solidity of the underlying forms, the snap and liveliness of his drawing and the designerly confidence of the way his color is applied.
(From joyengine.com)

Posted by Charley Parker
at linesandcolors.com

Joe Leyendecker’s renown grew from his ability to establish a specific and readily identifiable signature style. With his very wide, deliberate stroke done with authority and control, he seldom overpainted, preferring to interest the viewer with the omissions as well as the parts included. His three most memorable creations, which live on to this day, were the iconic images of the Arrow Collar Man, the New Year’s Baby, and the first Mother’s Day cover created for the Post, the painting which single-handedly birthed the flower delivery industry.
(From americanillustration.org)

Happy new year!
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times at latimesblogs.latimes.com
Photo: American Illustrators Gallery NYC / 2008
© by National Museum of American Illustration, Newport, R.I.

This illustration by J.C. Leyendecker appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in late 1908. It was one of his earliest New Year's babies; his first -- the first -- was in 1906.

Haggin Museum's JC Leyendecker show/2006 - a set on Flickr

All above images posted by Louis Gonzales at louisgonzales.com

TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
People are accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many people's liking instead of one.
Sometimes their reason—at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom their antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves—their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most part the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members of the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves.
The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the government their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the government, as it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there is a considerable amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any attempt of the law to control individuals in things in which they have not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by it; and this with very little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within the legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the feeling, highly salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite as often misplaced as well grounded in the particular instances of its application. There is, in fact, no recognised principle by which the propriety or impropriety of government interference is customarily tested. People decide according to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount of social evil, rather than add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental control.
And men range themselves on one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the government should do, or according to the belief they entertain that the government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere, as to what things are fit to be done by a government.
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage.
As soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others.
If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a primâ facie case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
To make any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose interests are concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent.
Human liberty comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
There is in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.
(Excerpts from 'On Liberty', Chapter 1, 1869 by John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) at bartleby.com)

IGNORANCE OF VICE AND GROWING INEQUALITY

There are two kinds of inequality among the human species; one, natural or physical, because it is established by nature, and consists in a difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind or of the soul: and another, which may be called moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorised by the consent of men. This latter consists of the different privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such as that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful or even in a position to exact obedience.
The body of a savage man being the only instrument he understands, he uses it for various purposes, of which ours, for want of practice, are incapable: for our industry deprives us of that force and agility, which necessity obliges him to acquire. If he had had an axe, would he have been able with his naked arm to break so large a branch from a tree? If he had had a sling, would he have been able to throw a stone with so great velocity? If he had had a ladder, would he have been so nimble in climbing a tree? If he had had a horse, would he have been himself so swift of foot? Give civilised man time to gather all his machines about him, and he will no doubt easily beat the savage; but if you would see a still more unequal contest, set them together naked and unarmed, and you will soon see the advantage of having all our forces constantly at our disposal, of being always prepared for every event, and of carrying one's self, as it were, perpetually whole and entire about one.
Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; it even combines those ideas in a certain degree; and it is only in degree that man differs, in this respect, from the brute. Some philosophers have even maintained that there is a greater difference between one man and another than between some men and some beasts. It is not, therefore, so much the understanding that constitutes the specific difference between the man and the brute, as the human quality of free-agency. Nature lays her commands on every animal, and the brute obeys her voice. Man receives the same impulsion, but at the same time knows himself at liberty to acquiesce or resist: and it is particularly in his consciousness of this liberty that the spirituality of his soul is displayed. For physics may explain, in some measure, the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing or rather of choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to be found but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the laws of mechanism.
Let us not conclude, with Hobbes, that because man has no idea of goodness, he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue; that he always refuses to do his fellow-creatures services which he does not think they have a right to demand; or that by virtue of the right he truly claims to everything he needs, he foolishly imagines himself the sole proprietor of the whole universe. A bad man, he says, is a robust child. But it remains to be proved whether man in a state of nature is this robust child: and, should we grant that he is, what would he infer? Why truly, that if this man, when robust and strong, were dependent on others as he is when feeble, there is no extravagance he would not be guilty of; that he would beat his mother when she was too slow in giving him her breast; that he would strangle one of his younger brothers, if he should be troublesome to him, or bite the arm of another, if he put him to any inconvenience. But that man in the state of nature is both strong and dependent involves two contrary suppositions. Man is weak when he is dependent, and is his own master before he comes to be strong. Savages are not bad merely because they do not know what it is to be good: for it is neither the development of the understanding nor the restraint of law that hinders them from doing ill; but the peacefulness of their passions, and their ignorance of vice: 'tanto plus in illis proficit vitiorum ignoratio, quam in his cognitio virtutis.'
Egoism must not be confused with self-respect: for they differ both in themselves and in their effects. Self-respect is a natural feeling which leads every animal to look to its own preservation, and which, guided in man by reason and modified by compassion, creates humanity and virtue. Egoism is a purely relative and factitious feeling, which arises in the state of society, leads each individual to make more of himself than of any other, causes all the mutual damage men inflict one on another, and is the real source of the "sense of honour." This being understood, I maintain that, in our primitive condition, in the true state of nature, egoism did not exist; for as each man regarded himself as the only observer of his actions, the only being in the universe who took any interest in him, and the sole judge of his deserts, no feeling arising from comparisons he could not be led to make could take root in his soul; and for the same reason, he could know neither hatred nor the desire for revenge, since these passions can spring only from a sense of injury: and as it is the contempt or the intention to hurt, and not the harm done, which constitutes the injury, men who neither valued nor compared themselves could do one another much violence, when it suited them, without feeling any sense of injury. In a word, each man, regarding his fellows almost as he regarded animals of different species, might seize the prey of a weaker or yield up his own to a stronger, and yet consider these acts of violence as mere natural occurrences, without the slightest emotion of insolence or despite, or any other feeling than the joy or grief of success or failure.
Man's first feeling was that of his own existence, and his first care that of self-preservation. The produce of the earth furnished him with all he needed, and instinct told him how to use it. Hunger and other appetites made him at various times experience various modes of existence; and among these was one which urged him to propagate his species — a blind propensity that, having nothing to do with the heart, produced a merely animal act. The want once gratified, the two sexes knew each other no more; and even the offspring was nothing to its mother, as soon as it could do without her.
Taught by experience that the love of well-being is the sole motive of human actions, he found himself in a position to distinguish the few cases, in which mutual interest might justify him in relying upon the assistance of his fellows; and also the still fewer cases in which a conflict of interests might give cause to suspect them. In the former case, he joined in the same herd with them, or at most in some kind of loose association, that laid no restraint on its members, and lasted no longer than the transitory occasion that formed it. In the latter case, every one sought his own private advantage, either by open force, if he thought himself strong enough, or by address and cunning, if he felt himself the weaker.
As every man punished the contempt shown him by others, in proportion to his opinion of himself, revenge became terrible, and men bloody and cruel. This is precisely the state reached by most of the savage nations known to us: and it is for want of having made a proper distinction in our ideas, and see how very far they already are from the state of nature, that so many writers have hastily concluded that man is naturally cruel, and requires civil institutions to make him more mild; whereas nothing is more gentle than man in his primitive state, as he is placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes, and the fatal ingenuity of civilised man.
It now became the interest of men to appear what they really were not. To be and to seem became two totally different things; and from this distinction sprang insolent pomp and cheating trickery, with all the numerous vices that go in their train. On the other hand, free and independent as men were before, they were now, in consequence of a multiplicity of new wants, brought into subjection, as it were, to all nature, and particularly to one another; and each became in some degree a slave even in becoming the master of other men: if rich, they stood in need of the services of others; if poor, of their assistance; and even a middle condition did not enable them to do without one another. Man must now, therefore, have been perpetually employed in getting others to interest themselves in his lot, and in making them, apparently at least, if not really, find their advantage in promoting his own. Thus he must have been sly and artful in his behaviour to some, and imperious and cruel to others; being under a kind of necessity to ill-use all the persons of whom he stood in need, when he could not frighten them into compliance, and did not judge it his interest to be useful to them. Insatiable ambition, the thirst of raising their respective fortunes, not so much from real want as from the desire to surpass others, inspired all men with a vile propensity to injure one another, and with a secret jealousy, which is the more dangerous, as it puts on the mask of benevolence, to carry its point with greater security. In a word, there arose rivalry and competition on the one hand, and conflicting interests on the other, together with a secret desire on both of profiting at the expense of others. All these evils were the first effects of property, and the inseparable attendants of growing inequality.
(Excerpts from 'A Dissertation On the Origin and Foundation of The Inequality of Mankind and is it Authorised by Natural Law?' by Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1754 at Philosophy Archive @ marxists.org)

GRANDE RIO

Mouths of Amazon River in Brazil
Satellite image
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wonderful and challenging. Natives who have been neglected by civilization inhabit it. The river is the only highway, and the boat is the only transportation. The State of Amazonas is not serviced by roads, only by rivers, which contain 20% of the world's fresh water supply. This is also where over 1000 tributaries come together to form the Amazon River.
(Copyright © 2004-2007 Amazon Mission Trip)

Map of the Amazon River drainage basin
Author Kmusser
Digital Chart of the World and GTOPO data
September 8, 2008
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pará River and city of Belém, Brazil
November 6th, 20081
Earth Snapshot Copyright © 2009 Chelys srl
From eosnap.com

In this image we can see the mouth of the Pará River in Brazil, part of the greater Amazon River system. The river is separated from the larger part of the Amazon delta by Ilha de Marajó (Marajo Island).
This region has an equatorial climate, a type of tropical climate in which there is no dry season. All months have mean precipitation values of at least 60 mm.
In the image, we can see sediments flowing from the river, perhaps dredged up by such rainfall or by the slash and burn treatment of tropical rainforests further upstream.
East of the rivermouth is the city of Belém, on the banks of the Amazon estuary, in the northern part of Brazil. It is the capital of the state of Pará.
Belem lies about 60 miles upriver from the Atlantic Ocean. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and coach station.

The Amazon basin
Tthe largest drainage basin in the world
Earth Snapshot Copyright © 2009 Chelys srl
From eosnap.com

The Amazon basin, the largest drainage basin in the world, covers some 40 percent of South America, an area of approximately 6,915,000 square kilometres (2,670,000 sq mi).The quantity of water released by the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean is enormous: up to 300,000 m³ per second in the rainy season. The Amazon is responsible for a fifth of the total volume of fresh water entering the oceans worldwide. Offshore of the mouth of the Amazon, potable water can be drawn from the ocean while still out of sight of the coastline, and the salinity of the ocean is notably lower five hundred kilometres out to sea.
The "Meeting of Waters" is the confluence of the Rio Negro (black) and the Rio Solimões (sandy) near Manaus, Brazil.The Upper Amazon has a series of major river systems in Peru and Ecuador, some of which flow into the Marañón and others directly into the Amazon proper. Among others, these include the following rivers: Morona, Pastaza, Nucuray, Urituyacu, Chambira, Tigre, Nanay, Napo, Huallaga, and Ucayali. The headstreams of the Marañón—which for many years had been seen as the origin of the Amazon—flow from high above central Peru's Lake Lauricocha, from the glaciers in what is known as the Nevado de Yarupa. Rushing through waterfalls and gorges in an area of the high jungle called the pongos, the Marañón River flows about 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) from west-central to northeast Peru before it combines with the Ucayali River, just below the provincial town of Nauta, to form the Amazon River.
The most distant source of the Amazon was firmly established in 1996, 2001 and 2007 as a glacial stream on a snowcapped 5,597 m (18,363 ft) peak called Nevado Mismi in the Peruvian Andes, roughly 160 km (100 mi) west of Lake Titicaca and 700 km (430 mi) southeast of Lima. The average depth of the river in the height of the rainy season is 40 m (131 ft) and the average width can be nearly 40 km (25 mi). It starts to rise in November, and increases in volume until June, then falls until the end of October. The rise of the Negro branch is not synchronous; the rainy season does not commence in its valley until February or March. By June it is full, and then it begins to fall with the Amazon. The Madeira rises and falls two months earlier than the Amazon. The Amazon estuary is some 330 kilometres (210 mi) wide. The width of the mouth of the river is usually measured from Cabo do Norte to Punto Patijoca. But this includes the ocean outlet, 60 km (40 mi) wide, of the Para river, which should be deducted, as this stream is only the lower reach of the Tocantins. It also includes the ocean frontage of Marajó, an island lying in the mouth of the Amazon. This means that the Amazon is wider at its mouth than the entire length of the Thames in England.

Francisco de Orellana (1511-1546)
Spanish conquistador in Peru and Amazonas River
Source fuenterrebollo.com
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One of Gonzalo Pizarro's lieutenants, Francisco de Orellana, during his 1541 expedition, east of Quito into the South American interior in search of El Dorado and the Country of the Cinnamon was ordered to explore the Coca River and return when the river ended. When they arrived to the confluence to the Napo River, his men menaced to mutiny if they did not continue. On 26 December 1541, he accepted to be elected chief of the new expedition and to conquest new lands in name of the king. The 49 men began to build a bigger ship for riverine navigation. During their navigation on Napo River they were threatened constantly by the Omaguas. They reached Negro River on 3 June 1542 and finally arrived to the Amazon River, that was so named because they were attacked by fierce female warriors like the mythological Amazons. The icamiabas Indians dominated the area closed to the Amazon River, rich in gold. When Orellana went down the river in search of gold, descends Andes (in 1541), the river was still called Grande Rio, Mar Dulce or Rio da Canela (Cinnamon), because of the great trees of cinnamon located there. The belligerent victory of the icamiabas against the Spanish invaders was such that the fact was narrated to the king Carlos V, whom, inspired by the Greek Amazons, baptized the river as Amazon.

The mouth of the Rio Negro
"Meeting of Waters"
The dark Rio Negro meeting the silty Amazon River
Author Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz Mariordo
28 Oct 2006
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Village along west bank of Rio Napo in Peru
Confluence with Amazon
The land visible beyond the waterway is an island in the river
Author Tim Ross
February 2002
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Índios Caipó
Indigenous people in Brazil's Amazon valley
Source Funai/Governo Brasileiro
08/07/07
Author Funai
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Av. Duque de Caxias, Belém
Author Psergio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In what is currently Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela a number of colonial and religious settlements were established along the banks of primary rivers and tributaries for the purpose of trade, slaving and evangelization among the indigenous peoples of the vast rain forest.
The total population of the Brazilian portion of the Amazon basin in 1850 was perhaps 300,000, of whom about two-thirds comprised by Europeans and slaves, the slaves amounting to about 25,000. In Brazil, the principal commercial city, Para (now Belém), had from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants, including slaves. The town of Manáos, now Manaus, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, had from 1,000 to 1,500 population. All the remaining villages, as far up as Tabatinga, on the Brazilian frontier of Peru, were relatively small.

Manaus downtown: Praça da Saudade, Teatro Amazonas
Background: Rio Negro
Source own work
01.04.2005
Author user:Pontanegra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shore and boats in Manaus
Author: Salina, Daniel
Source: Manaus, 2006
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Manaus
The largest city in the Brazilian Amazon
October 17th, 2008
Earth Snapshot Copyright © 2009 Chelys srl
From eosnap.com

Close-up of the city of Manaus
October 17th, 2008
Earth Snapshot Copyright © 2009 Chelys srl
From eosnap.com

In the close-up of Manaus, we can see the city’s location on the banks of the Rio Negro (Black River, so named due to the dark color of the water). We can also see the convergence of the Rio Negro, the dark river on the left, and the Amazon River (also called Rio Solimões), the brown river running across the image.
The construction of the new capital Brasilia in the interior in 1960 also contributed to the opening up of the Amazon basin. A large scale colonization program saw families from north-eastern Brazil relocated to the forests, encouraged by promises of cheap land. Many settlements grew along the road from Brasilia to Belém, but rainforest soil proved difficult to cultivate.Still, long-term development plans continued. Roads were cut through the forests, and in 1970, the work on Trans-Amazon highway network began. The network's three pioneering highways were completed within ten years, connecting all the major cities of the Brazilian Amazon interior. While debate as to whether the Amazon or the Nile is the world's longest river has gone on for many years, the historic consensus of geographic authorities has been to regard the Amazon as the second longest river in the world, with the Nile being the longest. However, the Amazon has been measured by different geographers as being anywhere between 6,259 and 6,800 kilometres (3,889–4,225 mi) long. The Nile is reported to be anywhere from 5,499 to 6,690 kilometres (3,417–4,157 mi). The differences in these measurements often result from the use of different definitions.
A study by Brazilian scientists claimed that the Amazon is actually longer than the Nile. Using Nevado Mismi, which in 2001 was labeled by the National Geographic Society as the Amazon's source, these scientists have made new calculations of the Amazon's length. They now estimate that the Amazon is 105 kilometres (65 mi) longer than the Nile,[10] and Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), told the Brazilian TV network Globo in June 2007 that it could be considered as a fact that the Amazon was the longest river in the world. However, other geographers have had access to the same data since 2001, and a consensus has yet to emerge to support the claims of these Brazilian scientists.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

From earthobservatory.nasa.gov

The above NASA image was created by Jesse Allen, using SRTM data provided, courtesy of the University of Maryland’s Global Land Cover Facility, and river data provided courtesy of the World Wildlife Fund HydroSHEDS Project. For clarity, the Amazon Basin and the watersheds feeding it appear bright, while the surrounding area appears darker. A white box outlines the region that the Brazilian researchers identified as the Amazon’s source; that area is enlarged in the bottom image. The larger image shows the rim of higher terrain along the western edge of the Amazon, where tributaries drain off mountain peaks in the Andes. A complicated network of riverbeds appears around Mount Mismi. According to their new estimate, the Amazon is 6,800 kilometers (4,250 miles) long. The Nile is thought to be 6,695 kilometers (4,160 miles) long. As the BBC reported, assessing the exact length of a river can be difficult, and the calculation depends partly on identifying the river’s source. Before the announcement, the Nile had been regarded as only slightly longer than the Amazon, so this new finding was not shocking, but the Amazon’s new primacy in river length could face future challenges as both rivers continue to be explored.

The Amazon River
The Amazon River facts and information
From freshwateraquariumplants.com

AMAZON RIVER BASIN
234k - Adobe PDF
From freshwateraquariumplants.com

Carbon Sink
CREDITS Getty Image
Copyright © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC.
Nutrients carried by the Amazon River help create a carbon sink deep in the Atlantic Ocean. The key ingredients transported by the river are iron and phosphorus. These elements are all that an organism called a diazotroph needs to capture nitrogen and carbon from the air and transform them into organic solids that then sink to the ocean floor. Researchers from the United States, Greece and England found that the Amazon carries these elements hundreds of miles into the ocean and has an impact on the carbon and nitrogen cycles much farther afield than previously thought. It is likely that other rivers also help seed carbon sequestering in the world's oceans, wrote senior author Doug Capone of the University of Southern California.
The findings may help scientists find the best places to test seeding the ocean with iron, a controversial practice that some biologists believe could help mitigate climate change. There are concerns that iron fertilization could harm sea life and potentially lead to increased production of other greenhouse gases, Capone said.
But while iron fertilization in cooler waters could be undermined by the upward flow of water from the depths, tropical waters could keep captured carbon solids from returning to the surface, he said. "If we choose as a human society to fertilize areas of the oceans, these are the places that probably would get a lot more bang for the buck in terms of iron fertilization than we would at high latitudes," Capone said.
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(Copyright © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC.)
Portuguese captain Pedro de Teixeira (1587-1641) led the first full-length upstream exploration of the Amazon River in 1637. Taking almost two years to complete, the expedition covered more than 3,500 land and nautical miles (5,633 km). Teixeira's voyage was the first to systematically document the Amazon from its silt-laden outlet in Belém, northern Brazil, to the headwaters of its source in the Andes Mountains. The expedition established Portuguese dominance in the vast Amazon basin area of South America, and brought knowledge of the river that Portuguese explorers called the "Rio Mar," or river sea, to the world. Political impact of the expedition reached across Western Europe, Brazil, and the vast sought-after lands and riches of South America. The human impact of Teixeira's expedition included comprised both the Portuguese royalty (and, ultimately their subjects), as well as the indigenous peoples of South America and Africa.
(Exploring the Amazon River from Science and Its Times. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation)

Amazon River, Peru
From raysadventures.com

AMAZONpdf
From fiu.edu

Timeline of Amazon History:
1500’s
1541- Francisco Orellana and crew explore the Amazon.
1600’s
1637-1638 -Pedro Teixeira take the first voyage up the Amazon and reaches Quito.
1700’s
1736- Frenchman Charles Marie de la Condamine leads a scientific expedition, opening the door for modern-day explorers.
1800’s
1800’s- Alexander Von Humboldt explores the Amazon.
Mid-1800’s- John Dunlap invents the tire; rubber boom begins.
Mid-1800’s- Amazon Basin becomes important source of rubber.
1839- Charles Goodyear invents vulcanization.
1850’s- Bicycles become popular, and it uses rubber tires.
1880’s- 1890’s- Rubber barons get rich in Manaus.
1890- Electric trolleys cross Manaus’s streets. In Boston, they still use horse-and- buggy!
1900’s- Exploration is conducted by the National Geographic Society.
1910- Rubber boom ends.
1914- Explored by Theodore Roosevelt.
1960-Now-Brazil has and is building highways and airports where rainforest once was.
1980’s- Brazil starts to ensure that efforts to develop Amazonia will not hurt it.
1982- Brazil sets aside over 19 million acres aside for the Yanomami tribe.
1987- 40,000 gold seekers pour onto Yanomami lands.
1988- Chico Menedes, a leader in the fight to save the rainforest, is killed.
1995- Truck road from Manaus to Venezuela is completed.
(By Matthew P. February 4, 1998, Science C3-S at Matt's Page at geocities.com)

KHAMSIN, SIROCCO, SHAHALI AND SHIMOOM

Sahara desert from space
Source Cropped from Image:
Africa satellite plane
Date February 11, 2002
Author NASA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sahara Desert, covering most of North Africa, is the largest desert in the world. From north to south the Sahara is between 800 and 1,200 miles and is at least 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from east to west. Due to the massive size of the Sahara, Africa is split into two regions: that which lies above or forms part of the Sahara and the rest of Africa south of the Sahara. On the west, the Sahara is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and on the east by the Red Sea, and to the north are the Atlas Mountains and Mediterranean Sea.
(© Copyright 1998, ThinkQuest team 16645)
The only true desert to be found along the 0° meridian line also happens to be world's largest. The Sahara covers most of north Africa, more than a third of the continent, and an area around the same size as the United States. It is a desert of extraordinary variety. Temperatures in excess of 55° C have been recorded in parts of Libya, while in some places frost can be seen during the winter. All the standard desert landscape types are present in the Sahara, from great fields of shifting sand dunes or ergs, to vast plains filled with rocks, known as reg.
Rainfall in most parts of the Sahara is scant and erratic - some areas endure several years without even a hint of a shower. In common with other desert regions, storms in the Sahara can be extremely localised, often affecting an area as small as 20 square kilometres. Strong, unpredictable winds are typical of the Saharan weather systems, and these have come to be known by names such as khamsin (50 days), sirocco, shahali, and simoom. These winds can blow for days on end, bringing with them vast amounts of dust and sand, which cover everything in their path and reduce visibility close to zero. From time to time, particularly powerful sandstorms can be extremely unpleasant and dangerous for anyone caught in them. Dust devils, which are like whirlwinds, also occur, hurling sand, dust, small animals and plants into the air.
(From oxfam.org.uk)

Enlarge the World Desert Map
Image by USGS
© 2005-2009 Geology.com.

The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى‎, aṣ-ṣaḥrā´ al-kubra, "The Greatest Desert") is the third-largest desert on Earth after Antarctica and the Arctic, and it is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometers (3,500,000 sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the continent of Europe. The desert stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel: a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna separating the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Sahara covers huge parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It is one of three distinct physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division.
Several deeply dissected mountains and mountain ranges, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and Red Sea Hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a shield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad.
Most of the rivers and streams in the Sahara are seasonal or intermittent, the chief exception being the Nile River, which crosses the desert from its origins in central Africa to empty into the Mediterranean. Underground aquifers sometimes reach the surface, forming oases, including the Bahariya, Ghardaïa, Timimoun, Kufrah, and Siwah.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Biggest deserts
NASA World Wind 1.4 used.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Antarctica 6400px from Blue Marble
A satellite composite image of Antarctica
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Satellite image of the Arctic surface
Artificially coloured topographical map
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A composed satellite photograph of Africa
Orthographic projection
NASA "Blue Marble" image
Art of Illusion program
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eilat and the Red Sea with Jordan on the other side.
Date 2007-01-26 (original upload date)
Author Photo by beivushtang
Original uploader Beivushtang at en.wikipedia

Map of the Mediterranean Sea
ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 code
Raster background map
Screenshot from NASA World Wind
Date June 2007
Author Eric Gaba (Sting)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Oasis of Timia
Photo by Denver Maxwell
Source Transferred from en.wikipedia
Original upload date 2006-11-05
Author Original uploader Denvermaxwell at en.wikipedia

Area of Hoggar (Tamanghasset, Algeria)
Originally posted to Flickr as Algerien_1_0050
Date April 15, 2006
Author Gruban/Patrick Gruban, Munich, Germany

Location of the Atlas Mountains (colored red)
North Africa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panoramic view of typical Berber village
(Morocco - High Atlas Mountains)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Valley in Atlas mountain, Morocco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panoramic picture
The artificial lake of Lalla Takerkoust
Barrage Cavagnac, Central Morocco
The hydroelectric dam (extreme right)

The highest peak in the Sahara
Emi Koussi
South end of Tibesti Mountains
Source spaceflight.nasa.gov
Date December 2001
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The vertical stabilizer of the Space Shuttle Endeavour almost appears to point out Emi Koussi Volcano in the Tibesti Mountains of Chad in Saharan Africa. Emi Koussi is one of the prominent volcanoes within the Tibesti massif of north-central Africa. The dark, shield-shaped volcanic edifice has developed over a mantle hot spot that rises beneath this region of the African continent.

Vegetation along the Nile
The river next to the big city, Beni Suef
Right side at the bottom of the picture
Date 18th Juny 2003 "12:38"
Author Marcell Katona
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dhows traversing the Nile near Aswan
Date 7 May 2008
Author Jordan Busson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ubari Oasis in Libya
Date 17.05.2005
Author Sfivat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

bahariya oasis spotted from black mountain
Feb 9, 2005
Photo: nomo/michael hoefner at zwo5.de
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kufra Oasis, Libya
Cultivated areas and irrigation circles
From SPOT satellite
Source earthobservatory.nasa.gov
(Earth Observatory)
Date 6-10-207
Author NASA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Panoramic view of Siwa Oasis 2006
Northwest Egypt
Overlooking ancient fortress made of mud-bricks
Photo Source cortinastelle.it
Transferred from wikipedia
Original upload date 2007-01-30

Look at a map of North Africa from Egypt to Algeria. Almost everything outside the Nile Valley and south of the coastal plain appears to be lifeless sand and gravel deserts, spotted here and there with oases and rain-catching massifs of uplifted bedrock. But peer deeper, under the sand, and you will find water.
Under the Sahara lie three major aquifers, strata of saturated sandstones and limestones that hold water in their pores like a wet sponge. The easternmost of these, extending over two million square kilometers, underlies all of Egypt west of the Nile, all of eastern Libya, and much of northern Chad and Sudan, and contains 375,000 cubic kilometers of water—the equivalent of 3750 years of Nile River flow.
(From saudiaramcoworld.com)
Its parched, forbidding landscape took shape over thousands of years, but even today, the Sahara is constantly changing.
Why is this desert so important to Africans? How do people survive its harsh, dry climate? And is the Sahara getting bigger, or smaller?
By studying satellite photos, some scientists have come to believe that the Sahara regularly shrinks and grows. In the early 1980s, the Sahara's southern edge expanded into the Sahel, a dry band that separates the desert from the savanna. But by the mid-1980s this area was green and wet again.
(From calacademy.org)