1898.] BRINTOX — LTXGUISTIC CARTOGRAPHY. 170 



This is that which is vaguely known as El Gran Chaco, or the 

 Great Hunting Ground. It lies in northern Argentina and eastern 

 Bolivia, between latitude i8° and 32° south, and longitude 58° and 

 66° west from Greenwich. It covers an area about as great in 

 extent as from Pittsburg to the Mississippi and from Chicago to 

 the Gulf of Mexico.^ 



On the east, the valley of the Rio Parana and Rio Paraguay, 

 which are the extensions of the Rio de la Plata, and on the west 

 the lofty elevations of the Andes, are its well-marked boundaries. 

 Between them the surface is usually level and intersected by numer- 

 ous streams, the three most important of which, the Pilcomayo, the 

 Vermejo and the Salado, flow from the Andes southeastward in 

 almost parallel lines. 



The climate is hot and the vegetation tropical. During the 

 rainy season the flat, grassy lands are transformed into shallow 

 lakes, while near the watercourses rise dense and lofty forests. In 

 the north are arid and sterile highlands. 



Except by the water-ways it is almost impossible to traverse the 

 country, and for that reason extensive tracts of it are still unex- 

 plored. 



The native tribes who inhabited this region have always been in 

 the lowest stages of culture, depending on hunting and fishing for 

 their subsistence, without settled abodes, migratory and in cease- 

 less warfare with each other. The self-sacrificing efforts of the 

 Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries have at times succeeded in gath- 

 ering a few hundred together about some mission, only to be dis- 

 persed again on some slight cause. Thus, some years ago, in the 

 middle of the night, the whole of the tribe of Penoquiquias, which 

 had been converted and induced to take up a fixed abode, suddenly 

 disappeared, and were never seen again (Cardus, i, p. 272). 



Recent Contributions to the Linguistics of the Chaco. 



In my volume on the linguistic classification of the American 

 race, published in 1891, I divided the tribes of the Chaco into four 

 principal linguistic stocks, the Guaycuru, the Mataco, the Vilela 



1 Boggiani (i,p. 10) puts the maximum length of the Chaco at 830 geographical 

 miles, and its greatest width at 360 miles. 



For this and other references in the text see the Bibliographic Note at the close 

 of this article. 



