upon mountain snows, the river comes down past the town each year and may be counted upon to water a certain amount of irrigated land. The Rio Algarrobal (latitude 28° S., or between Copiapé and Vallenar) last reached the sea in 1906. For years it had terminated above the pueblo Algarrobal, but in the four wet seasons of 1902-1905 inclusive it flowed to the end of its valley.
When I visited the Copiapé valley in 1913, after an earlier journey through the nitrate desert on the north, the region had suffered for several years from one of the most severe droughts in history, ‘The floor of the river channel was as dry as the neighboring country. There were salt incrustations that made white patches against the brown and yellow of the bor- dering desert and patches of dark-green brush or scrub gathered for firewood; and only as one approached Copiapé did the cultivated land appear, rich where there was water and quite barren upon those tracts for which a sufficient supply of water did not exist. On every hand I heard with what diffi- culty enough water was secured to keep the alfalfa meadows from drying up and the cattle from starvation.
Though there is more water at Vallenar, in the Huasco valley 100 miles south of Copiapé, the same complaints were made there. It was predicted that rain would surely fall, because no rain had fallen for three years in succession. One day great masses of black clouds came rolling up from the south, rain was confidently predicted, and telegrams were sent to absent owners at Santiago. It was a novel experience to find water so important that messages are sent whenever it looks as if it might rain! But the clouds dissolved in the late after- noon, and I was disappointed on leaving to have missed a rainstorm in famous old Vallenar. At the suggestion of one of my hosts I left my future address, so that he might telegraph me news of the first rain!
A single heavy shower benefits pastures and fields and brightens the outlook of hundreds of people. Two showers bring a year of plenty, and three or more showers make the year memorable, if indeed they do not bring floods and greater disaster than several years of drought.
