Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/351

 Atacama and in the region of Copiapé in Chile that might also be cited. All of these places are served by railroads that reach or nearly reach the mines. These railroads are built at great expense, operated on a very costly basis with coal imported from overseas, and trafhec is so light that new sources of freight are a constant anxiety of the trafhe manager. When we went to the superintendent of one of the railroads to ask him for the favor of free transportation because we were a scientific expe- dition he replied that he would willingly give us passes for our- selves but that he should have to charge us for the freight be- cause every additional pound loaded onto the freight train definitely raised his costs on account of the high price of im- ported coal. Under these circumstances a gradient is not a bar- ricr in the sense that cars may not pass, but it is truly a barrier in the sense that every additional mile of ascent increases by so much more the operating charges. We may say that man has overcome the mountain in such a case but that he pays a price. The mountain exacts a toll from him that must be added to the other charges of his business. It is natural for him to wish the mountain away. I[t is also natural that his railway net should be spread out in such a way as to be most favorably located with reference to the sources of his freight, the large towns that may furnish a tributary tonnage, and in sympathy with the main lines of the topographical relief. Figure 1 shows the rail- way net of the Central Andes, and it is the most striking fea- ture of the map that the railways come up to the border of the mountains but that only two penetrate them. Railway proj- ects are divided in consequence of the broken and lofty mountain barrier.

How strikingly different is the effect of high mountain coun- try upon the life of mountain peoples! I have clsewhere brought out this fact for the region of southern Peru and west- ern Bolivia. The mountain is not a barrier to shepherds who drive their flocks all over the higher pastures clear to the snow line. It is not a barrier to the same shepherds when they go up