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 motor truck has already begun. Cattle and fodder also come from southern and central Chile. Before the end of the last century the influence of the nitrate zone had effected a change in the Chilean pastoral industry that is usually significant of the transition from meat production to dairying. The wheat lands of the Central Valley were plowed up and converted into cattle pastures and hay and barley fields to meet the increased demands of the north for meat and fodder.

The highway of the sea has called into existence the princi- pal settlements of the nitrate zone, the ports. The older ports are those of Tarapaca where the salitreras were first exploited. Iquique, the nearest point of shipment for the first nitrate works, was in 1826 a fishing hamlet of about a hundred persons. Thirty years later it was estimated to contain 5000 inhabitants and was the second port of Peru. Later, when Iquique came into the hands of Chile, it figured as the first port in the export trade of the country and has ranked as chief port and town of the nitrate district until lately, when Anto- fagasta has come to the fore. In 1899 Iquique’s revenues from import and export trade amounted to over seven times as much as those of Antofagasta; in 1912 they were practically identical; and in 1915 revenues from nitrate alone were half as great again for Antofagasta as for Iquique. In sympathy with this development are the population changes effected in the two localities. Iquique had over 40,000 people in 1907; re- duced to 37,421 in 1920. In 1907 Antofagasta had 32,496; increased to 51,531 in 1920.

The growth of Antofagasta has been extremely rapid. Just before 1870 nitrate exploitation was begun in the Salar del Carmen east of a point on the coast known as Playa Blanca. Along the flat-bottomed quebrada leading to this point the nitrate was carried by oxcart, and thither also mules brought