The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-28


stronger than the people of the semi-trop-
ical lands of the north.
THE LONGEST OF COUNTRIES.
My voyage down the coast of Chile gave
me some idea of the enormous length of
the country. 1 spent five days In coming
by steamer from the nitrate fields to VAL
paraiso. and the German ship on which
shall sail within few weeks for TERRA del
Fuego will require nine days to reach Punta
Arenas, on the Straits of Magellan Chile is
more like a long drawn-out sausage or a
worm than any other country of the world.
The only land that compares with it is
Egypt, which drags it's weary length for
more than a thousand miles between deserts
along the valley of the Nile. Chile begins in
a desert and continues in it for more than
a. thousand miles. Later on it bursts out
into a green valley between high mountains
and ends in the grassy islands of the south
ernmost part of this hemisphere. 1t is no.
where over two hundred miles wide, and
in some places it is not more than fifty,
but it is SO long that if it were laid upon
the face of the United States. beginning at
New York, it would MAKE a wide track
across it to far beyond Salt lake, and if it
could be stretched from south to north with
TERRA del Fuego at the lowermost edge of
Florida, it's upper provinces would be found
in Hudson bay almost even with the top OF
Labrador. Chile is 1900 miles long. 1t en-
braces all of the land between the tops OF
the Andes and the Pacific ocean south of
the River Sauna, which divides it 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 Chileans and the Argentines are
strained almost to breaking, and no one
knows how soon war may result. or this,
however, 1 will write in the future.
WINTER IN CHILE.
A land of this kind must be one of many
climates. 1t is now winter on this side of
the equator but / 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 | am told
that the ground is now covered with snow
and that night begins at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon. During my travels in western
Peru and Bolivia weeks passed without
drop of rain. 1t never rains in northern
Chile, and everything in the cities | there
visited was as dry as Sahara. The great
questions 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 one hundred miles long. At
lquique water 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 aqueduct
is, L believe, the longest in the world. In
coming from Bolivia down to the sea l Wis
tied 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 a day
over thirsty desert along the
line of the aqueduct At other
ports 1 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 drinkabe
water from that of the sea. AS you sail
from this desert region south you now and
then pass valleys in which a little river
from the Andes makes everything green
but it is not until you reach Valparaiso
that the rainfall is heavy enough to cover
the WHOIS country Will venture.
south of here the rains steadily increase
until at a distance of 300 or 400 miles you
come into a territory where the people
facetiously say that it rains thirteen months
every year. AT Port Mont, in south Chile,
the rainfall is 11S inches 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 climate is
much like that of Southern California. The
skies are bright for at least eight months,
and during the remainder of the year there
are only occasional showers. This region
has, in fact, an almost perfect climate, and
this is so in all the provinces of north and
central Chile.
THE RICHES OF CHILE.
The long sausage which comprises the
land of Chile is full of excellent meat. There
are few countries of it's area which have
such wonderful natural resources. l have
written of the nitrate fields. which have al
ready produced hundreds of millions of dol
lars, and which have a supply that cannot
be exhausted for half a century to come.
A member of the Chilean Congress, Senior
Roberto Edwardson Meeks, with whom I
talked last night. tells me that there are
deposits of guano near the nitrate beds
winch SufpaSS tnOSe OF Ine lSlanuS OF GeTu
and which are worth thousands of millions
of dollars. He says they lie several feet be-
low the surface and that they the
mainland. All of north Chile is full of min
erals. In coming to Valparaiso l stopped at
a number of ports which have copper and
silver smelling works At Antofagasta there
is smelter which is said to be the largest
of the world. 1t is used to smelt the ores of
only one mining company, and when /
visited it l saw several acres COW
cred 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
Iquique there is smelter which belongs to
an American, a Mr.. George Chase. He
comes, think, from New York, and he has,
l 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, 1 am told,
netted him so much that he has laid aside
e3,OO0,0O0 ($15, 600 OCO) as a reserve fund
in the Bank of England. This seems
to ME big story, but there is no
doubt that Mr.. Chase is worth his millions.
One of the chief copper ports of Chile is
Coquimbo, a town of 1900 people, lying on
a beautiful bay about $50 miles north of
Valparaiso. 1t is in the center of one of