Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/133

 were destroyed. Mines were shut down because of lack of pro- visions, fodder, and labor. With roads washed out, fuel and vegetables could not be brought down valley, and prices rose even higher. By January 2, 1906, there had been such an enormous increase of water, owing to the unusually hot weather in the cordillera, that half of Tierra Amarilla was swept away. The government sent a company of troops and hydraulic engineers from the Public Works Department, and only by their combined efforts and the work of the citizens was the lower part of Copiapó saved. A mile and a half of flood- plain margin was torn away between Tierra Amarilla and Co- piap6. Hundreds were rendered homeless, and others obliged to live in hastily-made shanties on higher ground at the border of the valley. Under these circumstances the government was called upon to send relief to the sufferers; and this, together with money collected from the citizens, put the town in order again. In addition the government granted $400,000 for the construction of new roads with power to expropriate the pri- vate lines.

When the rain fell not too rapidly but just at the rate at which the soil could absorb it, as in May, 1851, it was a matter of observation in a letter of the mine managers of Copiapó to their English owners; and if cloudy weather followed, thus slowing up the rate of evaporation, it was likewise a matter of comment, just as in Greek agriculture when Hesiod commends the rain that falls so that the water stands at the level of the hoofs of the oxen, neither more nor less.

The two elements of greatest importance in the study of the relation of the people to water supply in this border region are the local showers and the distant mountain snows. The show- ers are nature’s gift to poor and rich alike; the snows, melting, discharge by way of rivers, and river water can be used only by the landowner who lives on the valley floor. Furthermore, the larger the estate the more water it is entitled to use; hence a greater disparity between the financial condition of the small