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 them that the winter snows, whose amount they mark with great concern, should be unfailing than that the vessels of distant ports and countries should ride at anchor off their repelling shores. Before the nitrate business was established the isolation of these towns was almost complete, and con- nection with the sea about as remote and unimportant as if they were in Central Asia or the heart of Australia. Separated by wide stretches of barren rock and sand, these oases are almost like oceanic islands in the degree of isolation they possess. No historic movement of any consequence was ever originated in them. Their chief importance has been their service to land travelers, who have used them as links in the chain of communication from central Chile to southern Peru and from the mountainous hinterland to the coast. Without the water supply which they had made known and developed, the Inca Empire could scarcely have been extended to Co- piapé and beyond. The oases furnished food, water, and guides to the Inca armies and were used as bases of operations in the progressive conquest of more southerly lands. Spanish conquest and occupation proved them similarly valuable.

When one conquers the waste spaces of the sea he has, within certain rather wide limits, his choice of lands to touch and products to secure; but here similar climate and similar conditions of soil and water supply are reflected in a lament- able uniformity of agricultural products. This means that there is no important trade from settlement to settlement, such as would develop if there were a specialization of prod- ucts. Moreover, no one desert settlement has an exceptionally large water supply and by reason of this an advantage that would tend to make it a central point for the commerce of a wide region. Naturally also the surplus of one valley in a for- tunate year cannot be sold to advantage if it consists of perish- able fruit or bulky forage. The neighboring valleys are equally poor, and their capacity to absorb outside products is very small. It follows that the prices for staple commodities vary