Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/411

Rh and contributing together a share about equal to that of Great Britain. There is a considerable import trade in cattle and other animals from the Argentine Republic across the passes of the Andes, but the export trade by these routes is very scanty. The passes chiefly used are those near the latitude of Santiago, the Portillo and the Uspallata passes—the former nearly fourteen thousand feet in height, the latter about five hundred feet less. The Strait of Magellan is stormy and washed by strong tides, and hence difficult of navigation, so that sailing vessels still prefer the equally stormy, but for them less dangerous, route round Cape Horn, in the south of Tierra del Fuego.

The Argentine Republic comprises a territory of more than a million square miles, with a population of about four millions. This territory consists mainly of a vast plain sloping down to the Atlantic from the Andes, and other lofty mountains in the west and northwest. It extends from within the tropics to the south of the continent, embracing the eastern half of Tierra del Fuego, and thus includes a great variety of climate. The districts in which the population is most considerable and most rapidly increasing are chiefly those in the neighborhood of the estuary of La Plata and along the right bank of the lower Parana, where there are not only the greatest facilities for commerce, but where also the climate is most favorable to production and best suited to people of European stock. The provinces to which this description applies are Buenos Ayres, south of the estuary; Santa Fe, on the right bank of the lower Parana; Cordoba, to the west of Santa Fe; and Entre Rios, "between the rivers" Parana and Uruguay. The climate here is that of the warmer temperate latitudes, generally with an ample rainfall. Toward the interior the rainfall generally diminishes, and irrigation becomes necessary for cultivation. It is more abundant, however, in the neighborhood of the northern mountains, at the base of which there are sugar and other tropical or sub-tropical plantations. The plain extending eastward from these mountains to the river Paraguay is mainly a region of open forest, and is inhabited at present almost solely by a few tribes of wandering Indians. It is known as El Gran Chaco, or "great hunting-ground."

Of late years the Argentine Republic, together with the neighboring state of Uruguay, has been undergoing a rapid development similar to that of the United States and Canada. They are receiving streams of agricultural settlers, but in this southern region the settlers are mainly from southern Europe (Italy, Spain, and southern France). The Spanish and French immigrants include a large proportion of Basques, who are found to be among the most valuable colonists in these regions. In the thirty years ending 1886 upward of a million immigrants entered the country,