262 Letters from Mr. J. Graham Kerr. 



10 feet to 10 yards in breadth^ and in depth from 6 inches 

 to 6 feet, a mere runlet of intensely salt water. Along this 

 we slowly progress by building dams to let the water accu- 

 mulate^ repeating the operation every few miles. This is 

 the aspect of aflPairs in the dry season ; when the rains come 

 it will, no doubt, be very different. So much for the river 

 itself — now for other matters. 



The surrounding country is in most places of that type 

 which is so characteristic of Gran Chaco, a dead level, clothed 

 with grass one to four feet in height, studded with fan-leaved 

 palms, sometimes thickly, at other times leaving open ex- 

 panses of considerable extent. On all sides an endless vista of 

 palm-trees, relieved only by an occasional solitary quebracho, 

 a patch of brushwood, or a small stretch of '' forest.^^ Of 

 animal life there are scarcely any signs — a Vulture soaring 

 in endless circles far up in the sky, or a Boie's Woodpecker 

 flying from one palm to another, are almost the only indi- 

 cations that life exists. Owing probably in great part to 

 the intense cold, even insects are few in number. Such is 

 the typical Chaco scene. Along the immediate margin, of 

 the river, however, there is more variety ; there is usually a 

 fringe of dicotyledonous trees, or a band of brushwood, 

 bounding the river-banks, and in these one finds a greater 

 variety of animal life, more especially of birds. 



The geological structure of the region is, as in the plain 

 tracts of most river-basins, uninteresting; so far we have 

 found everyAvhere a coating of alluvium, about 15 feet in 

 thickness, resting upon a structure of extremely fine-grained 

 soft sandstone, below which we have, as yet, not seen any- 

 thing. 



Of the botanical features I am, as yet, owing to the season 

 of the year, in a position to say but little. Most character- 

 istic are the forests of fau-palms and the huge savannah 

 expanses of grass. In the patches of forest one sees con- 

 siderable variety of trees, in particular a very great develop- 

 ment of arborescent Mimoseae. As, however, none of the 

 trees are yet in flower, I am not able to identify many of 

 them . A mongst herbaceous plants Compositae stand eminent 



