60 AMERICAN LUMBER IN FOREIGN MARKETS. 



by themselves. They attain to a height of 30 to 40 feet, with a trunk of 1 to 2 feet. 

 These varieties are also found in the province of Cordova. Fans are made of the 

 leaves, and its fruit is very sweet and much sought after by animals as well as men. 

 Sweetmeats are also made of the dried dates, from which likewise a species of rum 

 is distilled. The timber is not worth much, except for corrals and other fencing. 

 The effect produced by these immense forests of palm trees, with their trunks all 

 bare and their round thick crowns, all exactly uniform, is very picturesque and 

 inviting. Specific gravity, 0.960. 



The guayaivi. This tree grows to the height of 30 to 40 feet, with a foot diameter. 

 It produces a very white wood with a black heart, and owing to its strength is used 

 for lance heads, oars, handles of tools, etc. Specific gravity, 0.907. 



Besides these trees there are others equally well known, such as the mora, the 

 olmo or elm, the blanquillo, the cinal, the petertibi, but I have no description of them, 

 and others still whose Indian names, much less their botanical, I am not able to 

 give. Indeed, so little is yet known in regard to the ibrests of the Chaco, that 

 Prof. Lorentz still calls it a terra incognita, so far as science is concerned. The num- 

 ber of smaller trees, arborcts, shrubs, etc., which occupy that vast region have also 

 yet to be studied, though there is one, called the chaquar, of the family of Brome- 

 liacecK, which is a characteristic plant of great utility to the Indians. They make 

 ropes, house lines, and cloths of different kinds with its fiber, and especially shirts 

 or ponchos, which serve as cuirasses, being impervious to arrows; also fishing nets, 

 baskets, etc. They also eat its bulbs, and its fruit serves as a very piquant condi- 

 ment. The vinagrilla is another shrub which produces a pod as acid as vinegar. 

 The pirchuna is used for the manufacture of brooms. The alamisca bears a berry, 

 which is said to possess the in tensest bitter known. The avarillo produces a delicious 

 almond. 



FORESTS OF THE ARGENTINE MESOPOTAMIA. 



We now come to the Argentine Mesopotamia, as all that tract of country is called 

 which is embraced between the Uruguay and Parana rivers, extending from the 

 island of Martin Garcia, opposite Buenos Ayres, northward to the borders of Ih-n/il, 

 a region of over 1,000 miles in length, and varying from 50 to 200 in breadth. It 

 comprehends the provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, the territory of Misiones, 

 and the Republic of Paraguay, as also the thousands of islands which dot the two 

 great rivers named. The vegetation of the shores of the Uruguay in great part con- 

 sists of forests composed of a palm tree called the coco yatai, also the coco anstralis 

 and other species of the cocoa-nut tree, also a bamboo called tacuard, and the inya, 

 a very large tree of the Mimosa family, while farther up the river, approaching the 

 "Misiones," are found the urundey, the lapacho, the tinibo, etc., but they do not attain 

 to a very massive growth until about the twenty-eighth degree, from which point 

 northward the vegetation exhibits an extraordinary development, quite correspond- 

 ing to that of Brazil. The shores and islands of the Parana* River, having a soil 

 less argillaceous than those of the Uruguay, present a different arboreal growth. 

 The delta of the Parana abounds in willows, one variety of which, called the 

 tarandi, is a very rapid grower, and is used for fire wood. There is also a most exu- 

 berant growth of wild peach trees and orange groves. The former is also used for 

 fire wood, while the fruit finds a market in Buenos Ayres. The oranges of the lit- 

 toral are rather sour, though they improve upon being transplanted. The bitter 

 orange, which also grows here, is used for the manufacture of a favorite beverage. Aa 

 we advance up the river the islands more and more exhibit the characteristics of the 

 Chaco formation. 



If now we penetrate into the interior of the Argentine Mesopotamia, we will find 

 forests of the harder and more useful species, such as the talas, the chanurc*, the 

 algorrobos, the quebrachos, the vivaros, the naudubays, etc., all of which varieties line 

 the watercourses and fill the bottom lands of Entre Rios, and form to the northwest 



