Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1914-09-06

"oiio VI tols. ne rock looks as though it
mad been broken into pieces by the hammers
OF grants and piled up by some intelligent
force 1t is wonderful sight
have seen all Of the great mountain
ranges that wall the western side OF this
continent. The Andes are said to be the Last
OF the great mountain masses showed I'D out
OF the sea; and of all the highlands thew ara
III many respects the most wonderful. From
Panama to Patagonia they form mighty
geological garden such as can be seen in no
other part of the world. The combinations
OF desert and rocks and sky give scenic eff
tects beyond description. Parts of the Andes
are more desertlike than the wids of Arabia
or the Sahara. They show you how the
earth was made, and the terrible throes in
volved in its making. At times you seem to
be travelling upon the very bedrock of the
world, and again as though old mother
earth in her original nakedness of bare rock.
were laid out before you upon the dissecting
table. The walls of broken lava of which I
have been writing are perhaps 800 feet high.
he stones are dark red and they are piled
up IN regular masses, forming altogether a
whole an hundred times the volume of our
excavations at Panama In other places the
volcanoes have vomited sand. Again they
have thrown out deposits of rock the size of
walnut, and still again mighty powders
of semi-metallic nature.
All about these volcanoes of St. Peter and
st. Paul the scenery is magnificent and
right between them is a low crater as SYM
metrically shaped as though cut out by a
sculptor. This is of dark red color
Close to the volcanoes are the reservoirs
that give Antofagasta its water supply. The
water comes from the roof of the continent,
and the pipes, carrying it down are 1913 miles
long. The reservoirs are at an altitude
higher than the top of Pixies peak The
place is known as the Silo1i spring It has
flow of about 5000 tons of water per day,
the most of which goes to the towns on the
ocean in pipes that are II inches in diameter
After leaving Bolivia, the whole way
down to the seacoast is through the desert
The only green spots are the railway sta
tons watered by the pipeline from the res
ervoirs above. The most important town is
Uyuni. 1t has about 5000 inhabitants, and
it is the point where the branch road. now
building to connect with the Argentine sys-
tenn, begins. Uyuni has also other roads to
the great tin and copper mines nearby, the
ore being shipped from there over the main
line to the sea.
Some of the tin and silver still comes In
on the backs of llamas, and that even from
Potosi, which is Us miles away. The
llamas come in troops of 100 or more, and
take is days on the journey. A railway to
that point is almost completed A private
railway connects Uyuni with the mining
town of Pulacayo which has 5000 inhabi-
tants This is the center for the Huanchaca
silver mines, now owned by French-Chil-
can company. The Huanchaca mines are
said to have given to the world nearly 5000
tons of silver within the past rs years, and
they are still yielding enormously The
company uses electricity, getting its force
from the Yura river, which has fall enough
to develop 5000 horsepower The mines
have II miles of tunnels, and they employ
several thousand workmen.
Going from Uyuni down to the coast we
stopped at Olague, where a branch line
runs off to the Collahuasi copper mines,
said to be among the richest in South Amer
lea. This branch line reaches height Of
1890 feet; and that of Potosi, north OF
Uyun, reaches an altitude of 1854 feet
Both of these roads are higher than any
other railroads of South America except the
Morococha branch of the Central Railroad
of Peru, from where tobogganed down the
Andes on handcar. That line has an alti-
tude of 1896 feet, exceeding the Potosi
line by more than SO feet understand that