4 BULLETIN 133, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and old river channels, or esteros, adjacent. The Rio de Oro, a large 

 stream, drained an area farther north. Tracts of woodland, partly 

 open and partly dense jungle, bordered streams and channels, with 

 broad savannas on either side, through which were scattered groves of 

 trees, many 18 or 20 meters tall. Slight depressions in the prairies 

 were filled with water and many low tracts were grown with tall 

 stands of saw grass, laiown as paja hrava. Lagoons were bordered 

 by rushes and covered with floating masses of vegetation. Suitable 

 tracts in the higher savannas were under cultivation, and grazing 

 cattle had opened trails through forest that otherwise would have 

 been impassable. (Pis. 2, 3, and 4.) 



Work was completed here on August 2, when I went down again to 

 the port to board another police boat bound up the Paraguay for 

 Formosa. The current was swift, rendering progress slow. The 

 banks were wooded, with game or cattle trails leading to water at 

 intervals, or with occasional clearings in the vicinity of the few 

 small towns. (PI. 4.) 



Formosa, the capital of the Territory of Formosa, located on 

 the west bank of the Rio Paraguay, was reached early on August 3. 

 The land on the river bank near the town is comparatively high, but 

 inland and to the north becomes low and swampy. A line of railroad 

 built by the National Government to promote development of the 

 country extended northwest from Formosa for a distance of 297 

 kilometers, on a line midway between the Bermejo and Pilcomayo 

 rivers. It was contemplated to extend it finally to Embarcacion, 

 where it would connect with other lines from the south. Stations 

 on this road at this time bore numbers corresponding to their dis- 

 tance in kilometers from Formosa. On August 5 I took the biweekly 

 train to Kilometer 182, a point that had been recommended by 

 Mayordomo, Cacique of the Tobas, whom I had met at Las Palmas. 

 As the railroad leaves Formosa it enters the Chaco, a broad nearly 

 level area of alternate forest and marshy savanna, cut by several 

 large streams, that extends west of the Rio Paraguay from north- 

 ern Santa Fe north through Chaco, Formosa, and western Para- 

 guay into Bolivia. For miles our train traversed a roadbed built 

 through an interminable estero, with broad swamps and prairies 

 on either hand, dotted with slender trunked palms interspersed 

 with stands of saw-edged grass and rushes, and bordered by bands 

 of low-growing hardwoods, prominent among which was the que- 

 bracho, valuable for its dye product. Hundreds of acres were 

 covered with ant hills built up 3 or 4 feet above the surrounding 

 level to raise them above inundations caused by the summer rains. 

 At intervals we crept out to higher ground and stopped at some 

 little station, with a cluster of low houses or grass-thatched huts 

 about it. Elsewhere no signs of man were visible; bands of rheas. 



