The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-04
A Tour Through the Ne,v South America
,copyright. 1913. by Frank C. Car.
penter.1
Kingston. Jamaica.


the island of Jamaica, on nay
Il way to South America I am now
in the center of the Caribbean sea.
Two days later ! shall be at Panama
and within a month shall besa amid the
volcanoes and SHOWS on the top OF the
Andes 1 am just starting out on
tour of $4,000 miles through our great
sister continent, to write series OF
letters for this paper. I expect to Visit
the principal countries of South Amer
lea, going down the west coast from
Panama to Patagonia. travelling Tor
months in the Andes, investigating the
possibilities of the South American
desert, and writing of all the countries
which face the Pacific. Later in the
year / shall go around through the
Strait of Magellan, or over the noun
tains to the great republics which lie
on their eastern slopes traversing the
mighty plains and travelling up and
down the principal rivers
During this journey I shall describe
the countries as they are today and
the mighty changes now going on in
their civilization and industrial devel-
opment. I expect to travel over all the
factories and mills. to go down into
the mines and to show the wonderful
increase and the enormous possibilities
of South American trade.
The Continent of the Future
The new South America! The words
make my blood tingle when l think
of its future. South America is the
great undeveloped world of the nine
teenth century. 1t is the treasure vault
of the universe and the mighty coming
bread basket of the human race. Ar
gentina alone could supply enough
wheat to feed all mankind. The pla-
teaus of Bolivia and Brazil added to
Uruguay and the Argentine may in the
future be our chief sources of meats
and the minerals of the Andes-sil-
YER, gold. copper and tin-are prac-
tically inexhaustible AS to cultivable
land, South America far surpasses our
own great continent which lies at the
north. North America has the more
square miles, but a vast part of 1t is
all snow and ice. South America is
good all the way through from Car
acas in Venezuela to Punta Arenas on
the Strait of Magellan. The distance is
Francisco to Japan. The country is
flat from east to west. At it's greatest
breadth it is 500 miles wider than the
United States from Boston to San Fran
cisco, and the most of it consists Of
mighty plains so fertile that they rival
the valleys of the Nile or the Ganges
in their potential possibilities.
Some Big Things in South America
We are accustomed to boast that we
have the greatest country on earth.
North America seems about the only
big thing on our hemisphere and the
United States, in our opinion, stands
out as prominently there as the boil on
ones nose. We have no conception of
the immensty of the vast continent
which lies at the south, nor of the
mighty countries which are there in
the making. The man on the street
thinks of Brazil only a far-off To-
cality, of minor extent, from where
come the coffee he drinks of morn
ing and the rubber tire which eases
his motor car ride to his business. The
truth is Brazil is so big that it could
cover the whole of the United States
proper as with a blanket and have good
lands left over equal to 10 states the
size of Maine to tuck in around the
edges. Little Ecuador is twice as big
as Illinois, Peru is 10 times the size
of Missouri, and the low shoestring of
Chile if laid out in one block would
more than equal seven states bie'
as Ohio, Virginia or Kentucky. Ar
gentina has one-third as much Land
as the United States, and nearly ev-
or meat Bolivia is 10 times as big as
the whole of New England and Co.
1ombia is bigger than France or the
Spanish peninsula.
The most of these countries are white
mems countries Even those which lie III
the tropics have vast tracts of land so
high above the sea that their climate is
delightful ell the year round. The whole
of central and eastern Brazil is one vast
plateau, and the southern part of that
lcountry is noted for cattle and grain. 1t
is so popular with the Germans that they
lave settled there by the hundreds of
thousands. The country has become
known as West Deutschland and it has
German cities and towns. while regular
steamers from Germany call at the ports.
You might think that the white man
could not live as far down as the Strait
: of Magellan. That strait is a thousand
miles farther south than Cape Town, in
Africa. 1t is away down on the globe,
below Australia and New Zealand, and
nevertheless it's climate is so mild that
cattle and sheep can feed out of doors
there all the year round. The great
Island of Terra del Fuego is now de-
voted to sheep, and the whole country
about is summer resort compared with
1.-The lands of central Alaska. AS to that
!part of South America, speak from per-
sonal experience. I have been at the
Strait of Magellan in the heart of mid
winter, and have tramped around in the
mud, the weather being so warm that
there was no frost in the ground. 1 do
not mean to say that this is SO all the
time but its winters are mild.
Filling Uncle Sans Bread Basket
Speaking of the sheep at the strait,
brings TO the investigations l hope to
make as to whether South America can
not cut down the cost of our legs Of NUT
ton and our tenderloin roasts. There is
no doubt that frozen meats can be shipped
from there to our country and be served
Just as fresh as though they came from