Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/254



Upon the western side of the Puna de Atacama, where the main chain of the cordillera surmounts it, is a line of settle- ments of which the first (from the north) is San Pedro de Atacama. With elevation of 8000 fect it is neither a high plateau town like San Cristobal de Lipez (14,300 fect) nor a desert valley town like Copiapé (3000 feet) or Quillagua (2000 feet). Its site is so elevated that snow has been known to fall; yet the daytime temperatures are of the high desert type. It lies in a desert basin midway between the cold puna and the desert pampa. We have already mentioned the town in the preceding chapter in connection with the cattle business across the cordillera.

San Pedro is the counterpart of Salta on the east, for it represents a focus of trade between the mountains on the one hand and the desert and the Pacific coast on the other, just as Salta and similar towns on the eastern side of the Andes are a focus of trade for the mountain valleys and adjacent plains. So far as the mountain trade is concerned, Salta acts as a collecting center for shipment to the western side of the moun- tains and to Buenos Aires, just as San Pedro de Atacama acts as a distributing center for cattle driven to nitrate establish- ments and settlements on the railway and to scattered mines.

In the case of San Pedro there is a degree of isolation which Salta does not have, for Salta has the railway and its life is much more vigorous and active. Salta lies upon the eastern, better-watered slope of the Andes rather than upon the dry, desertic western slope and basin country. Yet both towns have a certain similarity in history and in pre-railway life, and be- tween them is similarity of ideas and businesses associated with life upon the frontier. Both are old settlements, dating back to the earliest colonial period. Both have a high propor-