Evening star., 1898-08-27

length 1or more tnen thousand miles ba-
! tween deserts along theI valley Of the Nile
| Chile begins in desert and continues in
| 1t for more than O.. Thousand miles, Later
| on 1t bursts out into q grsen valley be-
| tween high mountains and ends in the
| grassy islands of the.southernmost part of
| this hemisphere. II Is nowhere over 200
| miles wide. and In some places 1t Is not
more than fifty, but it is so long that IL it
| were laid upon Tho face of the United
| States, beginning at New York, it would
| make a wide track acroEs 1t to far beyond
| Salt Lake, and if it,coula be stretched from
south to north with Tferra del Fuego at the
| lowermost edge OF Florida, its uppar prov
| inces would be found In Hudson bay almost
even with the top1 Of Labrador. Chile is
! 1900 miles long. 1t embraces all of the
| land between the tops of the Andes and
| tha Pacific ocean south Of the River Sama.
which divides 1t from Peru, and it has, in
addition, most of the islands about the
Straits of Magellan. The question as to
| just where the boundary Of Chile and the
Argentine Republic lies is one of dispute
| between the two countries, and one which
promises to bring about war sooner or
| later. Just now the relations of the Chill
cans and the Argentines are strained al
most to breaking, and no one knows how
soon war may result. OF this, however,
will write in the future.
When It's Chilly In Chile.
A land of this kind must be one of many
J climates. 1t is now winter on this side of
the equator, but I found it quite warm in
the north. Here at Valparaiso one needs
an overcoat when the sun is not shining
and at the Straits of Magellan 1 am told
that the ground is now covered with snow
and that night begins at o'clock in the
afternoon. During my travels in western
Peru and Bolivia weeks passed without a
drop of rain. 1t never rains in northern
Chile, and everything in the cities 1 there
visited was as dry as Sahara. The great
question in most of the towns along the
coast is where to get water to drink. At
Mollendo, Peru, a little above the Chilean
border, the water supply comes from the
Andes near Arequipa through an iron pipe
more than 100 miles long. At Iuuique wa
ter is piped more than eighty miles. and
Antofagasta gets its drinking water away
up in the Andes $50 miles back from the
coast. This Antofagasta aaueduct is | be-
leve, the longest in the world. In coming
from Bolivia down to the sea l visited the
great reservoir within a stones throw of
a dead volcano down the sides of which
this mountain water flows and rode on the
cars for almost day over thirsty desert
alcng the line of the aqueduct At other
ports L found them selling water This is
the case in many of the nitrate settlements
The steam from the engines of the nitrate
factories is condensed and there are en-
gines used solely for making drinkable
water from that of the sea- AS you sail
from this desert region south you now and
then pass valleys in which little river
from the Andes makes everything green,
but 1t is not until you reach Valparaiso
that the rainfall is heavy enough to cover
the whole country with verdure. Further
south of here the rains steadily increase
until at distance of 800 or 400 miles YOU
come into a territory where the people
facetiousiy say that it rains thirteen
south Chile, the rainfall IS us inc hes
every twelve months and here it is only
fifteen. In this part of the country and in
the northern part of the central valley the
a1i, !,
fornia. The skies are bright for at least
eight months and during the remainder of
the year there are only occasional showers.
This region has, intact, an almost perfect
climate, and this is SO in ali of the prov
inees of north and central Chile.
The Riches of Chile.
me long Sausage which comprises tie
land of Chile is full of excellent meat
There are few countries of its area which
have such wonderful natural resources. 1
have written of the nitrate fields, which
have already produced hundreds of mil
lions of dollars, and which have supply
which cannot be exhausted for a half CEN
tury to come. A member of the Chilean
congress Senor Roberto Edwardson M.eks,
with whom | talked last night tells me
that there are deposits of guano near the
nitrate beds which surpass those of the
islands of Peru and which are worth thous-
ands of millions ofIdollars. He says they
they are on the mainland. All of north
Chile Is full of minerals. In coming to
valparaiso stopped at number of ports
which have copper and silver smelling
works. At Antofagasta there is a smeter
which is said to be the largest of the world
1t Is used to smelt the ores of only one
mining company, and when I visited it 1
saw several acres covered with bricks of
silver ore which had been ground to dust
and put into this shape that they might be
the more easily smelted. That is perhaps
the most valuable brick yard on earth. At
lqutque there is smelter which belongs to
an American, who has, 1 am told, some
of the most valuable silver mines in
South America. The ore Is almost
pure. The mines are SO profitable that they
have made him rich, and have, I am told
netted him SO much that he has laid aside
three million pounds (s15,O00000) as a re-
serve fund in the Bank Of England
one of the chief copper ports of Chile is
Coquimbo, a town of 900 people, lying on
a beautiful bay about 100 miles north of
Valparaiso 1t is in the center of one of
the richest copper deposits of the world.
The metal is nearly pure and some of the
mine owners tell me that there are almost
inexhaustibie quantities of it. Chile has
already produced about four billion pounds
Of copper In 1896 it shipped about fifty
million pounds, but the most of this went
to Europe, as we have all the copper we
need of our own. From Coquimbo they are
now exporting something like 1000 tons of
copper a month and several smelters are
kept busy turning the ore into bars. Chile
has also large deposits of iron, manganese,
quicksilver and lead. There are a number
of gold mines in the south, and much gold
washing Is done in the streams of TERRA
del Fuego. There is also gold in the north,
and | am told that a large part of the
mountains have not been well prospected,
and that the mines far developed have
been worked after the most wasteful meth
ods, so that the waste on the dumps
could be smelted with profit. AS to the
agricultural condition of the country, 1 will
write after have visited some of the great
hac1endas. The central valley, which lies
between the range of mountains that bor-
ders the coast and the main range of the
Andes. is 500 miles long, and it is divided
up into vast estates, upon which all sorts
OF fruits and cereals are grown. Chile pro-
duces more than 2S.000 900 bushels of wheat
a year, and she ships her products to the
other countries of this part of the world
by the thousands of tons. 1t has thous-
ands of acres of vineyards and exports a
great deal of wine. The cattle consumed
at most of the coast ports come from Chile,
and the best horses to be found in South
America are Chilean bred.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.
Expression to Affection.
{ta D1,;Iad ado1,,, yrs.x.