The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1885-12-04
UP IN THE CLMTDs.

A Trip Across South Anne effess-C Climbing
+ Over the Andes Among the Grandest
i Scenery in the Wor1d-NIolntains Over
! Four Miles High.
Cor. Chicago Inter-Ocean.
| He who wishes to make the Journey
rom Chill to Argentine Republic and
the east coast of South, America, has
a choice of routes. He may go to sea,
around through the Straits of Magel-
Ian, which will cost him fifteen days
time and 5000 of money, or he may
climb over the Andes. On the back of
q mule, a journey of fve days, three
of which only are spent in the saddle,
amid some OF the grandest scenery in.
| the world.
The highest mountain in the Vest
srn Hemisphere is Aeoncagua, in Chill;
which rises 22,415 feet to the north
ward from Valparaiso and Santiago,
and in plain viewfrom both cities when
the weather is clear. Chimborazo. was
for a long time supposed to be, the
king Of the Andes, and in the geogra-
phies published fifty years ago is. de-
scribed as the highest summit i'll, the
world. No csae has ever reached the
| peak of either mountain, owing to the
depth of snow and impossible gorges,
but recent measurements taken
by means of triangulatien give
Aconcagua an excess of about
1000 feet over old 'NChimbo. !"
Scientists have reached an, attitude
higher than the summit Of either In
the Himalaya mountains of India,
where Mount Everest is claimed to
rise between 27,OOO and $4,000 feet.
Humboldt made Chimborazo famous,
and very few travellers have gone be-
yond the point he reached; but no
serious attempt has ever been made
to explore the summit of Aeoncagua,
as the Chillanos do not often go where
their horses can not carry them. In
mountain gloom and glory, Chimbora-
20 is said to surpass all rivals, stand
ing, AS it does, within sight of the sea,
and surrounded by cluster OF twen-
ty peaks, like a king and his counsel
ors. But Aconcagua is grand enough
and has nothing near it to dwarf its
size. The latitude in which it stands,
brings the snow line much lower than
upon Chimborazo and the other peaks
of Ecuador, which are almost upon
the line of the equator, and the purity
of the atmosphere gives the spectator
an opportunity to see it's picturesque
ness at a long distance.
From Santiago, Chilli, there is a
! government railway as far as the
town of Santa Rosa, passing around
the base of Aconcagua and furnishing
the traveller with one of the most SUBJ
| lime panoramas of mountain scenery
on the globe. At Santa Rosa mules
and men are hired to ride over the
Cumbre pass to Mendoza, on the
eastern slope of the Andes, to which a
railroad has recently been opened by
the Argentine government. Here one
can take Pullman sleeper and ride
| to Buenos Ayres, as comfortably as
he can go from New York to St. Louis,
! and the distance is about the same.
This railroad was opened in May
| last with O. grand celebration, in which
the Presidents of Chill and the Argen-
tine Republic, with retinues of officials,
participated. The event was as inn
portant to the commercial develop
ment of Argentine as was the opening
OF the first Pacific Railway to the
United States, as it opened to settle
ment millions of square miles of the
best territory in the republic and fur
nished a highway between the two seas.
The people OF u,sse United States have
very little conception Of wnatt IS going
on down in this part of the world.
They do not realize that there is here
republic which some day is to rival
our own-a country with immense
resources similar to those of the United
States, situated in corresponding
latitude, prepared to furnish the world
with beef and bread, and stretching
network of railways over it's area that
will bring the products of hepampas,
which correspond to our prairies, to
market.
The geography publishers do not
keep peace with the development of
this part of South America, and to
present accurate accounts Of it's con-
dition, they should be written every
year. Who knows, for instance ex-
cept they who have been here, that a
man can ride from Buenos Ayres
across the pampas to the foothills of
the Andes in Pullman car?
An American merchant, Mr.. Bowers,
formerly of Boston, got q contract re-
Gently to furnish the schools of the
Argentine Republic with text books.
He ordered many thousands of the
latest issue of the most revised geo.
graphy from the most enterprising
publishers in New York. When the
books came he looked them all over
and Immediately shipped them all
back. Why? Because these modern
biographies represented the Argentine
Republic as it was fifty years ago; and
the people would have been insulted
had they seen what was said of them.
In the first place this country was
called 'The Argentine Confederation"
and stands as such upon most of the
modern maps. The geographer did not |
know probably that a bloody war had
been fought to determine that the Ar
gentine Republic was not a confedera-
tion, but a Nation, with a big en-" It |
was like calling the United States "the