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 reference for events in and about Copiapo and takes preced- ence over earthquakes in this respect, terrible as these have been; the sources of firewood, quarrels over water rights, the price of forage and cart or pack mules, the state of the snows in the cordillera-—one or another is a daily theme of conversation and a running basis of business. The structure of such a community is of great historical as well as geograph- ical interest. Loria, the Italian economist, holds that the history of colonial settlement is for economic science what the mountain is for geology, bringing to light primitive stratih- cations. “America,” he says, “has the key to the historical enigma which Europe has sought for centuries in vain, and the land which has no history reveals luminously the course of universal history.”