AMERICAN LUMBER IN FOREIGN MARKETS. 55 



natives gather the eggs of the insects and make them into dry compressed balls or 

 cakes, weighing about a half pound each, which they sell for $1 apiece for commer- 

 cial purposes. 



THE GREAT SUBTROPICAL FORESTS. 



We now approach what is designated by Moussy as the " tropical" and by Prof. 

 Lorentz as the " subtropical" forests. This formation is the garden of the Argen- 

 tine Republic, and presents to us landscapes of such magnificence and fertility 

 that we seem to be wandering in an enchanted wilderness. It exists in the high 

 table-lands on the eastern ranges of the Cordilleras and their branches, whose waters 

 are drained by a thousand streams and water courses towards the Parana and its 

 great affluents. These plains and watersheds are all adorned with the rankest of 

 tropical forests, which pass to the northward beyond the confines of the provinces 

 of Salta and Jujuy into the territory of Bolivia, thus reaching to the latitude of 21 

 south.* Nearly all the varieties of trees which characterize the preceding forma- 

 tions are here found in more accentuated proportions, while it is rich with the mag- 

 nificence of a hundred additional species, many of them so covered with eplphitea 

 and airplants that it is sometimes difficult to discover the verdure of the tree to 

 which they are attached ; and both trees and plants producing flowers of many bril- 

 liant colors. Gigantic lianoe twine around the trunks and drop their air-roots to the 

 ground, while their branches reach out and involve the branches of other trees in 

 the vegetable mesh. Sometimes trees are seen growing upon other trees, their roots 

 buried in the dust, which through centuries has been accumulating at the foot of 

 the branches. On one occasion, in climbing to the heights of the Sierra Aconquija, 

 in the vicinity of Tucuman, I undertook to penetrate this wealth of vegetation 

 which fairly filled the gorges leading to the table-lands above, and where for ages 

 the sunlight has been shut out from the earth by leagues upon leagues of arboreal 

 giants; but the wild and tangled mass of undergrowth disputed every foot of 

 approach, and I had to relinquish the attempt. 



It seems almost impossible to exaggerate the wealth of timber which is found in 

 these high latitudes. There is hardly a tree but possesses some special value for 

 particular purposes. There is in the University of Cordova a very rich display of 

 many of the varieties, being sections taken from the trunks and polished. They 

 uniformly exhibit an exceedingly fine grain, embracing every shade of color, from 

 the richest rose to the deepest green, from the darkest ebony to the lightest cream, 

 some with most exquisite veins and others with manifold variegated hues. In any 

 /ther country than this they would be esteemed as precious woods, equaling and 

 rivaling those of Central America or Brazil, but they are at present so remote from 

 market that for commercial purposes many of them are yet almost valueless. I 



*On crossing the Rio de las Piedras, a river of the province of Salta, we entered at 

 once the territory of Oran, the extreme northern limit of the Republic, which lies 

 just above the tropic of Capricorn; our path still lying through dense forests, 

 whose stems were frequently rendered completely invisible by reason of the close 

 clasp of the thick and tangled mass of creepers which, in full flower, not alone from 

 summit to base, but roofing the lofty vault with superb campanulate rounded heaps 

 of blue, white, violet, and rose, emitted overpowering but delicious perfumes. * * * 

 Our course was soon arrested by another river, the Santa Maria, and on reaching its 

 further bank we entered the densest forest I ever saw ; not the cathedral-like colum- 

 nar-stemmed trees, rising 70 or 80 feet without a limb, and then surmounted by a 

 branched, leafy, floral dome, such as I had seen in other parts of the country, but an 

 impenetrable mass of entwined, gnarled, fantastic plant development, confusing 

 trunks, branches, foliage, and flowers in one inextricable melange from top to bot- 

 tom. Two growths contributed to this effect; one superior, of massive size and 

 impending, the other inferior and consisting principally of wild orange groves, etc. 

 (White's Note Book of a Naturalist, vol. xi, p. 307.) 



