Norwich bulletin., 1922-04-15
IN THE DAYS NEWS
PATAGONIA

Patagonia has long been ticketed in many minds with kamchatka and Timbuktu as representing the ends Of the earth. Now it has its supposed strangeness further emphasized by the reported discovery there of ple- siosaurus, a huge lizard-lilze creature thought to have been extinct for many thousands of years. Something of this land which may harbOr pre-h's- toric monsters is told in d bulletin issued from the Washington. D. C., headquarters of the National Geo graphic Society.
 If the ideas of Patagonia generally held are bit hay" says the bulletin.
 there is good reason for it. for the region did not really begin to be well known until a generation ago, and even now there are sizable areas that have not been explored. The first fact that needs to be understood about Patagonia is that it is not an official division. Like the Northwest Terri
 tory of the early days of the United States, it has been carved up into states O. provinces. But even if the name, Patagonia, has been pushed or many official papers, it has chung in ! popular usage and probably will re- main for a long time.
 l | tina would probably be given as the i off-hand location of Patagonia in a ] large number of cases. But the region given this designation really covers
 one-half the north and south extan- , sion of the Republic, stretching from ! central Argentina for more than 1000 miles south almost to the lip of the continent. Its width varies from about !, 150 miles in the south to 450 in the
 north, and its area is nearly twice that of California, our second largest State.
 "An idea of the physical condition ! and economic development of this vast area can be conveyed best perhaps by the statement that pa-agonia is io Argentina what the great West ar l the Southwest were to the United just after the Civil War. There was
 the myth of the great American desrt'
 then-a dry, cheerless country that
 could never be reclaimed. But with
 the extension Of railroads. farms ranches and irrigation systems this North America desert is disappear
 ing.
 desert for many years; but farms and irrigation works have already res . cued great enclaves from the regioT
 and millions of head of cattle and . l score of million sheep are supported
 today on only portions of the area
 After few thousand more miles o | railway shall have been constructed few hundred steam shovels shal , have been set to work, and a few mil lion yards of wire fencing shall havl
 been stretched in place. the Patagoni' desert will probably go the way of it North American precursor.
 l sr int haA ] statements of a careful scientist - Charles Darwin-did much to giv
 Patogina an undeservedly bad reputa : tion before the world. Darwin studie : chiefly the forbidding desert coast O
 the lower portion of the country, an l his discouraging report was interpret ed as applying to the entire country :. For decades no one thought it wort ] while even to explore the hinterlanC j. iIt is westward beyond the semi
 arid pampas or plains that the mos
 interesting and least thoroughly know I portions of Patagonia are found. Alon
 the eastern slopes of the Andes an 1 in some of the valleys between it
 parallel ranges is scenic and clima : tic paradise. Grassy meadows an 5 forset- clad slopes alternate with shee Y cliffs and towering, snow mantle e peaks; and scattered everywhere ar : innumerable sparkling streams an ? sl5y-blue lakes. This is, in fact. on : of the most extensive and most won e derful lake regions in the world. e number of these bodies of water ar s comparable in size to Lake Champla'i ] Only a relatively few of the sma'le 9 lakes have been named and some hay d been numbered Many of them, how n ever, have not been explored. It ,l in this inter er-mountain lake regio g that scientific expeditions will scare a for the strange creatures reported d have been seen there.
 y "One of the best known of u Il Argentina is nearly 1000 miles mort d of Cape Horn. The area of this many l. branched body of water is probab