BULLETIN OF THE PAN AMERICAN UNION

lakes without peer in all the Old World.
What desert anywhere is more beautiful
than the Painted Desert of Arizona, the
sandy waves of the polychrome Desert
of Atacama? What golden plains, any-
where in the world, are fairer than those of
the Dakotas, or of Patagonia? What
landscape has inspired finer prose than the
Argentine pampa? What continent has
more magnificient waterfalls than Niagara,
Yosemite, Iguass6, or La Guaira?
In plant and animal life the New World
is equally well endowed. The greatest and
richest forest areas on the face of the earth
lie within the Americas. They include
not only some of the largest, oldest, and
most beautiful trees, but a treasury of
plant life and a fauna that have been the
subject of travelers' tales from the days of
the early explorers. Orchids are now
flown, at great expense, from one end of
the hemisphere to the other-although

they include many species that grow as
naturally in the forests as a mahogany
tree or a staff of bamboo. Birds of every
imaginable color throng the forests, waters,
plains and swamps from the Arctic to the
Antarctic; along South America's west
coast their millions on the guano islands
are one of the natural wonders of the
world. Throughout the hemisphere are
found mammals unsurpassed in interest or
beauty anywhere in the world. These
birds and mammals have not only been
the inspiration of painters, poets, and
writers of prose; they have also proven to
be a natural resource of almost inestimable
value. Where they have not been over-
exploited they are still producing vast
revenues for the people of the Americas.
They have also influenced our history;
what gold was to Pizarro and Cort6s, the
beaver was to the explorers of North
America. More than any other single

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PERUVIAN CORMORANTS ON SANTA ROSA ISLAND
The winged multitudes, found nowhere else in comparable numbers, are one of the world's greatest
natural wonders.

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