Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/413

 BUENOS AYRES 407 Lake C.irpincho to the ocean at San Borombon bay, and the Colorado and Negro, both naviga- ble for a considerable distance from the Atlan- tic; and the country is interspersed with nu- merous lagoons and salt marshes, which are dry one half of the year. The province con- tains, besides Buenos Ayres, 78 towns, districts (partidos), and colonies. There are 440 public and private schools, attended by 28,373 pupils of both sexes, or less than one third of the to- tal number (99,213) between the ages of 6 and 15. These figures indicate, however, a consid- erable improvement in educational statistics as compared with those of former years. There is at Santa Catalina, about three leagues from Buenos Ayres, a model farm with a free school of agriculture; the government will expend $500,000 in the development of this enterprise. Four lines of railway lead from the capital to the interior : the northern, about 30 m. ; the western, 100 m. ; the southern, 72 m. ; and the Ensenada, 10 m. A submarine telegraph ca- ble has been laid from the capital to Monte- video ; and a line across the Andes was com- pleted in July, 1872, connecting Valparaiso and Buenos Ayres. The total length of tele- graph wires in operation in December, 1872, was about 4,000 m. ; and some 1,500 m. were in process of construction. The provincial gov- ernment is divided into four departments : the legislative, composed of a senate and a cham- ber of deputies ; the executive, composed of the governor, elected by the people for three years, and two ministers ; the judicial, consisting of a superior court or court of appeals, and de- partmental judges of first instance for civil, criminal, and commercial cases ; and the muni- cipal department, whose power does not reach beyond matters of a purely local character. A special convention was hi 1872 engaged in re- Buenos Ayres. vising the provincial constitution, with a view to the adoption of important modifications. Like all the other provinces, Buenos Ayres has a revenue of its own, independent of the na- tional revenue; but its liabilities are not all internal as are those of the other provinces. Its budget requires $2,000,000 annually to de- fray the expenses of the government, militia, schools, &c. ; and it contracted a foreign loan of 1,034,700 in England in June, 1870, at 6 per cent, interest, redeemable at par in 33 years. The provincial income in 1869 was said to be only $600,000. II. A city, the capital of the province and of the Argentine Repub- lic, situated on the right bank of the estuary of the Rio do la Plata, 180 m. from the sea, and 123 m. W. of Montevideo ; lat. 34 36' 8., Ion. 58 36' W. ; pop. in 1869, 177,787, of whom 41,957 were Italians, 13,998 Spaniards, and 13,402 French. Of the remainder, about 75,000 were native Argentines of European descent, 10,000 native Montevideans, 10,000 English, Irish, Americans, and Germans, and the rest Indians. This city, which is, after Rio de Janeiro, in nearly all respects the most important in South America, differs in its leading characteristics little from the large cities of the North American and European seaboards, and has been called the Athens of South America. It is in shape a parallelo- gram, having the long sides from E. to W., and the N. side on the estuary, which is here nearly 30 m. wide. All the streets are paral- lel to the respective sides. It covers an area of nearly 2,000 acres, and is divided into blocks 450 ft. square, presenting, when viewed from an eminence, the appearance of an iinmense chess board. The early Spanish settlers who planned the town, which they called Santisima Trinidad de Buenos Ayres, made the streets only 36 ft. wide, and the houses, which were built of sun-dried brick, had rarely more than one story. Modern buildings have, however, gradually taken their places, and since 1860 the city has rapidly improved in appearance, and has been embellished with handsome edifices of three or four stories. A corre- sponding improvement has been made in tha