DISTRIBUTION OP INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES. f>3 



Its important mill** are for grinding wheat. They are principally in the vicinity of Concep- 

 iiml have !. n .-m-trd mainly l>y American enterpriBe, and directed by American opera- 

 ti\s. Seventeen establishments iimlrr various proprietors were in operation within 30 miles of 

 the city. Ponchos, some of which are of superior <jiiality, are made hy hand-looms; the very 

 fine ones occupying nearly a year in their manufacture, Tln-sr ol'tcn sell for as much as $40 

 to $00, and some lew as high as $100. \Vln-n it is known that the supply of good wool at 

 \n \ low rates is ample ^that water-power is unlimited, and that the forests abound with dye- 

 htuH's, many of whose colors are indestructible, we can only wonder why woollen factories have 

 nut In-cn established on a large scale. One or two enterprising and intelligent capitalists 

 would easily make Concepcion the greatest city of South America. The objects of primary 

 importance to them would be: 1st. The erection of saw-mills. These would enable them to 

 build houses of lumber, the only material proper in that region of terrific earthquakes to 

 say nothing of the unceasing demand for it along the coast. 2d. Manufactories for woollen 

 goods. 3d. A ship canal between the Biobio and Bay of Talcahuano, by which vessels might 

 Inad and unload at the city, and a channel be opened for heavy rafts and other produce from the 

 giv.it plain to the ocean. And, 4th. Proper miners and machinery for the coal depoaites. 

 These completed, agriculture would, of necessity, receive impetus ; and in course of time a road 

 will be made across the Andes near the volcano of Antuco, where a pass has been traversed by 

 carriages, and from whence it may readily be continued to the city of Buenos Ayreg. There 

 they have no water-power for factories few fields for cereals ; whilst from the foot of the 

 Andes, on the eastern side, to the waters of the Atlantic, nature has made a gradual and un- 

 broken slope, across which a road could be constructed at trifling cost for the transportation of 

 the superabundant products of Concepcion. 



ARAUCANIA. In 1852 Congress erected the territory lying between the Biobio and the Im- 

 perial, the crests of the Andes and the Pacific, into a new province under the title of Araucania, 

 and authorized the President to direct the usual departments and subdivisions, and appoint 

 appropriate officers. What has been done subsequently is not known, though it is not likely 

 that the laws of civilized life will be acknowledged in the larger portion of this territory for 

 many years to coine. A nation which maintained its independence against the powers of 

 Spain and its descendants during three centuries a veritable imperium in imperio is not 

 likely to recognise much virtue in the dictum of a few dozen legislators, presented only through 

 the columns of a newspaper. 



The territory thus set apart embraces a superficial area of not less than 11,000 square miles; 

 nearly all of it, away from the coast, as completely unknown as the interior of Africa. Travel- 

 lers may pass over the road from Concepcion to Valdivia, perhaps, without other molestation 

 than the loss of their horses ; but the Indian preserves the same jealous watchfulness for his 

 liberties, and, looking with equal suspicion on all the white race, the only individuals who are 

 permitted to penetrate to the plain are the peddlers, who occasionally bring packs with toys 

 and finery. Unfortunately, these are neither geographers nor political economists ; and all we 

 have learned with certainty is, that Araucania is a country in no respect inferior to the province 

 of Concepcion ; that its people are, measurably, an agricultural and pastoral race, who live in 

 far greater comfort than the laborers on the haciendas of central Chile ; that many of them 

 have herds of cattle to barter for the trinkets, bridles, and other commodities of the peddlers ; 

 that they do not aggregate in towns or villages, but each has his tract of land for cultivation 

 and pasturage in the vicinity of one of the many streams; and that they are polygamists, and 

 their wives manufacture ponchos and coarse woollen cloth to greater extent than the wants of 

 their families demand. The art of weaving was known to them before the visit of Europeans ; 

 and in the fineness of thread, evenness of weaving, durability and brilliancy of colors, and 

 elegance of patterns, they far excel their more civilized neighbors. Though their agricultural 

 staples are, in general, the same as those grown in Concepcion, a greater proportion of Indian 

 corn, beans, and barley, are raised for their own consumption ; orchards of apple and pear 



