Last Days in Argentina 291 



the Capital, a region which the reader by this time 

 realizes is interminably flat. Very different from this 

 is the western country traversed by the Andean Alps. 

 The loftiest peak is that of Aconcagua, which rises 

 more than twenty-three thousand feet into the air. 

 Several of my friends in the Academy of Sciences of La 

 Plata have devoted a great deal of time to the system- 

 atic exploration of Aconcagua, and one of them 

 presented me with an extensive collection of photo- 

 graphic views of this noble mountain which he made a 

 couple of years ago. There are in the southern Andes 

 scores of other peaks, scarcely less impressive than Acon- 

 cagua, which remain to be conquered by the members 

 of some future Alpine Club, which awaits organization 

 in Argentina. There is a whole world of as yet unseen 

 wonders to be investigated in the southern portions of 

 the cordilleran ranges. Not only the mountain-climber 

 and the artist, but the geologist and the mineralogist, 

 have still before them a rich field in which to exert their 

 powers in this territory, which remains almost virgin soil 

 for the explorer. I should have liked very much to have 

 visited the region of the Strait of Magellan, which, 

 richly dowered with fiords, glaciers, and snow-peaks, 

 rivals Norway in the magnificence of its scenery. But 

 even more than all these would I have liked to have 

 seen the Falls of the Iguassu. This mighty cataract, 

 far exceeding in size and height our own Niagara, is 

 one of the wonders of the world, which has as yet been 

 visited by but few persons. I made diligent inquiry to 

 ascertain whether it would be possible for me to pene- 

 trate so far and return within a reasonable length of 

 time, but discovered that in order to make the journey 

 at least three weeks would be required, and therefore 

 abandoned the thought of the undertaking. 



