358 THE PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 



Cordilleras on the other. No phj^sical difficulties 1)ar the way to the 

 iuvestij^ation of glacial phenomena amidst some of the most striking 

 coast scenery in the world. Near the parallel of 51' south are two Pata- 

 gonian lakes closely associated — Argentina and Viedma — which offer 

 opportunities for the study of glaciers such as are probably not to be 

 found an^'where else in the same latitude. For here the phenomenon 

 of disappearance is in the stage of natural illustration. Glaciers are 

 disappearing rapidly which but a few years ago seemed to be a per- 

 manent feature of the surrounding mountains, and the lake surface is 

 checkered with their debris. There, too, may be studied for hundreds 

 of miles northward the natural sequences of their disappearance — the 

 formation of fresh-water lakes and their gradual desiccation in turn — 

 whilst all around there is the continued story of geographical evolution 

 due to the alternate forces of glacial and volcanic action written in 

 gigantic characters on the face of natui'e. 



CENTRAL SOUTH AMERICA. 



Not very much has l)een added of late years to our practical knowl- 

 edge of the hiddeii depths of central South America except from the 

 inexhaustible mine of information possessed by that eminent geogra- 

 pher, Colonel Church. A Brazilian expedition in ISIHJ, the explorations 

 of a commission sent to investigate the interior with a view to the 

 establishment of new political capital to Brazil in 1892-98, the discov- 

 eries of Dr. Ramon Paz in 1891:, and a checkered journey in the val- 

 ley of the Orinoco by Stanley Paterson in 1897, form the principal 

 records of modern days. There is doubtless much which is of the 

 greatest connnercial and political interest still tx^ unravel in connection 

 with the geography of the great river l)asins of tiie continent. But in 

 South America we are threatened with perhaps the greatest develop- 

 ment of what I may call artificial geography that the world has ever 

 seen. Not only will the consunnnation of the Panama Canal project 

 change the whole system of our Western sea couununications and prol)- 

 ably exercise a more enduring effect on the world's conmierce than 

 even the Suez coimection between East and West, but the possibilities 

 of linking up by a central canal system the three great river biisins of 

 the South — that of th(> Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Plata — is under 

 serious considei'ation, and t\\o mere project will in itself lead to an 

 exhausti\'e (examination of much untravelcd counti'v. Thus, even 

 South Am(M-ica no longer offers a large Held for the geographical 

 pioneer of the future. With its narrowing areas of terra incognita and 

 its almost ])h('n()in(MiaI advance toward a leading position as the pastoral 

 and meat -producing <|uarter of (he hat)ita])l(» globe, with possibilities 

 of (level()])ni('nl in this ]iarticular line ])rol)aI)Iy exceeding those of 

 Australia. New Zealand, and South Africa all put together, it is surely 

 high time that South Amei'ica turned her attention toward a com- 

 bined and sustained international (^liort to i)lace her scattered and 



