Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/54

 feature of practically all the deserts in the world. In northern Chile the rains and snows produce heavy floods that extend far out over the nitrate pampa and freshen the innumerable gullies that feed the main streams and spread vast sheets of mud and gravel over the outer piedmont. They are said to occur once or twice in a lifetime.” Billinghurst notes nine- teenth century floods in the Pampa del Tamarugal in 1819, 1823, 1852, 1859, 1878, and 1884." Bollaert comments on those of 1819 and 1852.'* Floods also occurred here in 1903 and igif. Probably some of the storms are quite local in charac- ter, but others appear to be associated with widespread periods of rain, as those of 1819 and 1911. The latter was a scason of extraordinary character. Fortunately we have an official me- teorological record of it.!* The phenomena recorded are so unusual in this region that it is worth while to reproduce the report in some detail.

On February 15 and 16, 1911, the towns of Pozo Almonte, Huara, Pisagua, and others of the province of Tarapacé suf- fered a great inundation following days of furious snowstorms in the cordillera. Increase in the river at Tacna interrupted communication between that town and Arica; an enormous lake that formed between Huara and Pozo Almonte suspended railroad service there; the work of the salitreras was para- lyzed, numerous workmen's encampments were destroyed, and likewise a large quantity of nitrate. In some parts of the pampa it rained copiously on the night of the 13th, though elsewhere not a drop fell. On June 24 of the same year rain fell at Antofagasta in the early morning; it was accompanied with a violent thunderstorm that caused great alarm among the people, so rare is such a phenomenon on the coast. At3P.M.

te@F. J. San Roman: Desierto i Cordilleras de Atacama, 2 vols., Santiago, 1896; reference in Vol. t, pp. 190-191.

« G. E. Billinghurst: Estudio sobre la geografia de Tarapacc, Santiago, 1886, p. 36.

1 William Bollaert: Antiquarian, Ethnological and Other Rescarches in New Gra- nada, Equador, Peru and Chile, Lomlon, 1860, pp. 263-

& Anuario Meteorolégico de Chile rorr, Inst. Central Meteorol. » Geotisico, Santiago, 1912.