communities that now lie scattered along the watercourses or about the rim of the grasslands,
Having to wait for a week at Salta while the mules were be- ing prepared for the pack-train journey that | was to take across the Puna de Atacama, [ employed the time in going to the end of the railroad at Embarcacién to look into at least the border of the region and to learn what I could of the trade at this frontier town and of the conditions under which the trade was carried on. The railway descends from 1187 meters (3893 feet) at Salta, in a mountain basin, to 286 meters (938 feet) at Embarcacién, on the piedmont plains. It was completed to the latter city in 1912, the first passenger train running in Jan- uary of that year, though the line to Salta was built 35 years ago and to Jujuy 30 years ago. There have been two chief rea- sons why the railroad has been extended into the edge of the Chaco. First, there is the trade with the settlements at the foot of the Andes where the Chaco and the mountains meet, a trade that was at best feeble and carried on by pack train and oxcart over almost impassable tracts and that in itself would not have proved a sufficiently strong magnet. But oil was dis- covered in south-central Bolivia near Cuevo north of the boundary town of Yacuiba. The transportation of iron pipe and well-drilling machinery required the improvement of the track and the extension of railroad facilities. The total com- merce from Embarcacién north in 1913 was 12,000 tons a year. The distance to the Bolivian frontier is about 100 miles, and the cost of carriage is startlingly high. From Buenos Aires to Embarcacién a carload of 30 tons costs $500 to transport. The well tubing at Embarcacién is said to cost 4 cents Argentine a pound. One section of 6-inch tubing weighs 300 pounds, and five of these make a cartload for six mules. From Embarcacién to Santa Cruz de la Sierra transportation costs from $7.00 to $10.00 a kilo and to other places along the way a corresponding amount; thus to Yacuiba on the frontier, or the first 1¢co miles of the journey, it costs $1.30, and the balance, of $5.80 or more, is for the next 500 miles of the total distance of 600 miles. Mather, who visited the region in 1920, writes in the Geographical Review:
