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 BUENOS AIRES

36

BUENOS AIRES

43 164 inches. The barometer ordinarily ranges from 29.825 inches to 30.03 inches.

At the time of its founding in 1.580 this settle- ment had 300 inhabitants; in 1744 the population was 11,118; 40,000 in 1801 (estimated); 62,228 in 1822; 177,787 in 1869; 404,000 in 1887; 663,854 in 1895; 950,891 in 1904; 1,084,280 in December, 1906; 1,109,202 (estimated) in July, 1907. All of these amounts, except the third and the last, are taken from the official census. Of the total annual increase in population (46.3 per thousand), 19 to 20 per thousand is due to excess of birth-rate over death-rate; the rest being the effect of immigration. In the 950,981 inhabitants reported in the census of 18 September, 1904, the Argentines numbered 523,041; the foreign- ers. 427,850 (22S,556 of the latter number being Italians, and 105,206 Spaniards). Classified by re- ligious beliefs the figures were: 823,926 Catholics; 24,996 Protestants; 6,065 Jews; 8,054 of various other creeds; 13,335 professing no religious belief, and 74,515 unspecified.

The municipality of Buenos Aires is a federal dis- trict of 733 square miles (19,006 hectares). The governing authority of this district, vested in the president of the republic, is exercised through a min- ister of the interior and a chief of police, for the main- tenance of public order, and in a superintendent (intendiente de la capital) and a municipal council, for the construction and management of public works. The police force carry modern firearms. Both the municipal council and the superintendent have been since 1901 appointed by the president with the assent of the senate, though the question of reverting to the former system of popular election was, in 1907, under discussion by the Legislature. The municipal revenue in 1904, was $5,571,840 (5,804,000 pesos oro). In the older portions of Buenos Aires the streets are from 30 to 40 feet wide; the few avenues as yet in existence have a width, generally, of about 57 feet, though the Avenida de Mayo, nearly a mile in length, is 99 feet wide. The paving of the city, formerly defective, has gone on improving from year to year until the present time, when 70 per cent of the public thorough- fares is paved with granite over a bed of cement or sand, 15 per cent with macadam, asphalt, or carob block, and the remainder with cobblestone. There are upwards of 300 miles of street railway, mostly electric, the traffic on which for the year 1903 was registered at 133,719,218 passengers.

Since the cholera epidemic of 1867-68, and the yellow fever of 1872, two public engineering achieve- ments have most powerfully co-operated towards the healthfulness of the city: the waterworks and the drainage system. The supply of drinking water is derived from the Rio de la Plata by means of a great pumping tower whence the water passes, through a tunnel three and two-thirds miles in length, to the reservoirs, to be filtered, clarified, and then raised by powerful pumps to the monumental structure known as the Deposito de las aguas corrientes. In this building twelve iron tanks, each 134J feet square and 13 feet deep, are arranged in three tiers of four each, at different levels. These twelve tanks have an aggregate capacity of 72,000 tons of water. The drainage system includes an installation in every house, connected scientifically with the cloaca mdx- ima, or main sewer of the city, which runs a distance of 19 miles and 7 furlongs (32 km.) and discharges into the Rio de la Plata opposite Berasategui. The rain-drainage pipes are connected with the main system in such a manner that in case of a heavy down- pour, the excess of water is turned aside to a special

rain-drainage conduit, having a capacity of 1419

cubic feet per Mennil, which, after running a distance of nearly two and three-quarter miles, discharges its contents at a point north of Darsena Norte. The establishment of these two great systems of sanitary

works has lowered the death-rate from 30 per thou- sand, in 1887, to 14 per thousand, in 1904.

Other municipal institutions worthy of mention are the great abattoirs of Liniers, which cover an area of more than 61 acres, and from which 700,000 car- cases of beef and 900,000 of mutton, ready for the market, are annually turned out, and the produce- market, an immense depository where the wheat, wool, leather, etc., produced in the country are col- lected for exportation. The state university of the republic, with faculties of law, medicine, engineering, philosophy, and literature, established in separate buildings, is situated at Buenos Aires; also many in- stitutions of secondary and primary education, both public and private.

From very early times Buenos Aires has been gen- erally known throughout South America by the colloquial name of El Puerto, and to this day the natives of the city are called Portehos, rather than Bonaerenses, or Buenos-Aireans. Nevertheless, until 1885, and even later, El Puerto, being only a river port, and as the bottom of the river had gone on rising with the deposits of mud brought down by the stream, the river front could not offer a sufficient depth of water for vessels of even moderate draught; which were, therefore, obliged to anchor many miles away from the bank. The improvements of Puerto Madero, however, effected between 1890 and 1899, have now attracted ocean steamers of the highest tonnage. Vessels of lower tonnage anchor at the little port of Boca del Riachuelo, the mouth of a comparatively small stream which empties into the Plata south of the city. Both these ports are sub- ject to the necessity of constant dredging to counter- act the silting-up of the bottom by the action of the stream. The number of entries and clearings at these two ports amounts to 6000 in the year, aggregating more than 28,000,000 tons. The commerce of Buenos Aires is 849 per thousand of the imports, and 515 per thousand of exports of the whole republic.

The first foundation of Buenos Aires took place in the beginning of the year 1536, under Don Pedro de Mendoza, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Em- peror Charles V and Adelantado of the Rio de la Plata. In 1541 it was deliberately depopulated by Don Domingo Martinez de Irala, the governor, its inhabitants being transferred to Asuncion, in Para- guay. The second founding took place 11 June, 1580, under Juan de Garay, Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General for the Adelantado Juan Ortiz de Zarate. Since its first foundation the place had been called the Port of Santa Maria de Buenos Aires, and the city was called Santisima Trinidad, taking its name from the day (Trinity Sunday, 29 May, 1580) on which Garay arrived there with his followers, and erected the Royal Standard in anticipation of the formalities of the founding proper. Hence the name usual in ancient documents: Ciudad de la Santisima Trinidad, Puerto de Buenos Aires. Santisima Trini- dad is still an alternative title of the archdiocese. Buenos Aires in 1617 was made the capital of the prov- ince of Rio de la Plata, which was created a vice- royalty in 1776. In 1593 the city was threatened by the expedition under Hawkins sent against the Spanish possessions in South America by Queen Elizabeth of England; in 1627 by the Dutch who had taken pi sion of Brazil; in 1657 by the French expedition of Timoleon Osmat, a soldier of fortune; in 1098 by another French squadron; in 1700 by a Danish. But on none of these occasions was (he city actually at- tacked. A British expedition under Popham ob- tained a footing in Buenos Aires (27 June, 1806), bu( the place was recovered by conquest on the l'-'lh Oi the following August, ami defended against anew and formidable expedition commdaned by White- lock (2-5 July, 1S07) by the country people organized as a militia force, who, on the former occasion, made