Average climatic conditions during the cereal producing period of the year in portions of the Argentine Republic and in the United States, as shown from official data.

Given a productive soil and proper cultivation, these average conditions would seem to promise a substantially equal yield. A variation from this must be supposed to be the result of considerable variation from the average climatic conditions. If such variations occur as frequently as is mentioned by Dr. Burmeister relative to the province of Buenos Ayres, heretofore noted, so that two out of five or six years on an average are years of failure of cereal crops, either because of excessive drought or rain, or if the testimony of the Buenos Ayres Herald, as heretofore quoted, is substantially true, that one wheat crop in three in the Republic is a failure, then, whatever the other conditions may be, grain-raising will scarcely be extensive and regular enough in the country to supply the annual demand of the increasing population.

CONCLUSION.

The portion of the Argentine Republic which is richest in soil and has the best climate is that which approaches nearest to the tropics. This is intersected by the largest rivers and most numerous streams, and is separated from the ocean on one side by Uruguay, Brazil, and Paraguay, and on the other by Chile and Bolivia, and particularly the great Andean chain. As has been shown, the climate of Lima, near the equator, extends well down this northern part of the Republic, and

unlike the pampas it has been enriched by the continual and often abundant vegetation which has decayed or been deposited by overflow upon it. The productions secured by agriculture from this considerable region will naturally and increasingly tend to be those of such culti vated regions elsewhere, and approach the tropical, as sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco, etc., none of which are yet raised in the Republic in sufficient quantities to supply the present home demand. This region is much better for cattle, also, than for sheep, and the valuable timber is all here, except in the mountains of the southwest.

Another region, where grain and fruits, especially grapes, may be grown successfully with irrigation, and where the grasses should be nutritious and abundant enough for herds and flocks sufficient to meet local wants, includes provinces or portions thereof lying along the Andes, such as Mendoza, San Juan, etc. This region has very little rainfall, and necessary irrigation must generally come from streams derived from snow upon the mountains; and as in many cases these streams become dry annually, it is probable that water storage will become necessary to a considerable utilization of the soil in agriculture-a resort of the far future, when population and cheap transportation may encourage production on a larger scale.

As to the balance of lands, constituting the pampas generally, possibly agricultural or otherwise, perhaps sufficient has been said under other heads to give in the main a fair idea of them and their character. It is evident that they require peculiar modification to make them valuable, even for a short period, to agriculture, and that this modifica tion requires, under the familiar conditions, the continuance and extension indefinitely of the cattle ranges.

BOLIVIA.

Bolivia secured its independence from Spain in 1825, and assumed as a nation, in honor of its liberator, Bolivar, the feminine form of his name; and the constitutional assembly having decreed on the 11th of August a republican form of government, by request he formed the first constitution. The present fundamental law, however, dates from October 28, 1880, and approaches more nearly to that of the United States. By its provisions the executive power is vested in a President, elective for a four years' term by universal suffrage, who is assisted in their spheres by two Vice-Presidents similarly elected, and by a selected cabinet of five ministers. The President appoints the prefects or gov. ernors of the several departments, answering to states of some other countries, who exercise therein supreme political, military, and administrative authority, subject to the direction of the appointing power and the laws. The departments are divided into provinces, under subprefects, there being for each provincial capital a municipal council; and the provinces are divided into cantons, under corregidores. Under this system, the like of which exists in several Spanish-American countries, it is evident that the powers of the Presidency may be exercised with facility and precision through the entire political system, all administrative officers being appointees of the President or of his appointees. The Vice-Presidents act only in the absence or inability of the President, and administer then in turn.

The legislative power is exercised by a Congress consisting of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies, elected by direct vote of the people, which meets annually on the 6th of August, the anniversary of independence. There are two senators for each department, and in all 68 deputies; Congress holds ninety days of sessions annually, and members are paid $200 per month during the session, and traveling expenses.

The judicial system consists of a supreme court at the capital, Sucre, and superior courts in each of the departments, besides local courts. There is also at the capital a tribunal of accounts.

AREA AND POPULATION.

The area of Bolivia is as uncertain as that of most South American countries, as it has never been surveyed, and questions of boundary are still undetermined, possibly with Brazil, which may enlarge, and actually with the Argentine Republic, which may either diminish or leave undisturbed the present apparent limits. Only two authorities out of

nearly a dozen agree as to the extent of the country. The department of Atacama, with all the coast line possessed by the Republic, was lost through the war between it and Peru on one hand and Chile on the other, the extent of the department being 70,181 square miles, or nearly that. The Almanach de Gotha states the present area at 536,200 square miles, and the American Almanac evidently adopts that statement. The Statesman's Year Book gives the area as 772,548 square miles; the Hand Book of the American Republics as 784,554 square miles; the American Cyclopædia, printed before the loss of Atacama, 697,288 * square miles (reduced by that loss to 627,107); the Encyclopædia Britannica (1878), 536,200, or, reduced as above, 466,022 square miles; while the delegate from Bolivia to the International American Conference, Señor Velarde, says in his report upon railways: "The Republic of Bolivia, with a population of 2,500,000, has an area of 55,000 square leagues, or 275,000 square kilometers."

Reduced to square miles, this gives the lowest estimate of all, viz, 106,180. These differences are not reconcilable even on the assumption that the largest statements include lands released to Brazil some years since, and the only means of obtaining a moderately satisfactory esti. mate appears to be to make it from the limits of present boundaries as shown in the most trustworthy maps. The map made for the report of the International American Conference upon the railways of South America is herein adopted as the basis of estimate, as it is recent (1890) and has the approval of that body, and agrees mainly with the map of Bolivia in the Scribner-Black Atlas of the World (Scribner, N. Y., 1890). By it the average extent of Bolivia east and west is 11° of 60 geographical or 69.16 English miles, and the average extent north and south is 10 such degrees. Multiplied together, these give the probable area of Bolivia as 526,141 English square miles, an area nearly 5,000 square miles greater than that contained in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Nevada combined, or three and a third times the size of California.

Statements of the population of Bolivia are as various as are those of its area. Señor Velarde says, as before stated, that the population amounts to 2,500,000. The Hand Book of the American Republics, of February, 1891, says the "population, according to the last census,† is 2,333,350 inhabitants, of whom 1,000,000 are aborigines or Indians of pure blood; 700,000 half castes; and the other 600,000 of creoles, descendants of Europeans." Our consul-general to Bolivia in 1885, William A. Seay, in a dispatch to the Department of State,‡ gives the population as 1,982,079, and must have obtained his information from the authorities at La Paz. The Stateman's Year Book for 1891 estimates

* The table of areas of departments in the American Cyclopædia foots up as here stated, and the total is wrong in that work by 20,000 square miles.

+ Date of census not given, however.

Consular Report No. 60, January, 1886.

the population at 2,300,000, of which a million are Indians. Probably the statement given in the Hand Book of the American Republics is nearest correct, and is adopted as such in the aggregate and by departments in the following table:

In 1865. The changes since are slight.

And capital of the Republic. The department is also sometimes called Sucre. However, La Paz is practically the capital, being the residence of the Government.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Bounded north by Brazil, east by Brazil and Paraguay, south by Paraguay and the Argentine Republic, and west by Chile and Peru, Bolivia extends down the eastern slope of the coast chain of the Andes, across table-lands and a portion of the main Andean chain, and over extensive plains, portions of which are inundated during the wet season and other parts dotted with lagoons and marshes, nearly to the boundary and level of the great river Madeira, a principal tributary of the Amazon, to the northeast, and to the Pilcomayo and Paraguay Rivers on the east and south, the longest portion of the course of the former stream toward the latter being through Bolivian soil. Thus the western and central portions are mountainous, and the others belong respectively to the great basins of the Amazon and the Paraguay. The whole country lies between 80 south of the equator and the tropic of Capricorn, and is thus by position entirely tropical, but throughout about a third of its area the climate is modified more or less by elevation of the land, Bolivia containing the highest mountains in the Andean range. Says the article upon Bolivia in the Encyclopædia Britannica relative to this and the eastern range:

In Bolivia it attains an average height of 15,000 feet, and has a general width of 20 miles, having its highest known point here in the volcano of Sahama, 23,000 feet in elevation. Next follows the central system of the Cordillera Real, also named the Eastern Cordillera, presenting a succession of sharp, rugged peaks, reaching up into the region of eternal ice and snow, higher generally than the Andes but less massive; the peaks of Illimani (21,300 feet) and Sorata (24,800 feet) are its culminating points. Between the Andes and the Cordillera Real there are various Serrania or isolated groups of mountains and single cerros of less altitude rising from the inclosed plateau to 17,000 feet in some instances. The last system is that of the numerous minor cordilieras, which run southeastward from the Cordillera Real into the lowlands of eastern Bolivia. The elevation of the snow line in the highlands of Bolivia appears to vary between 16,000 and 18,000 feet, modified in many cases by the aspect of the mountains and the nature of the country surrounding them.

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