ARGENTINA 



342 



ARGENTINA 



nent was happily arbitrated by King Edward 

 of Great Britain. The beginning of a lasting 

 peace, with the settlement of old issues in 

 1892, was marked in a singularly impress i\v 

 manner by the construction of the famous 

 monument and statue known as the Christ 

 of the Andes. 



There is no other statue in the world so 

 significant of peace and commerce as this one, 

 which marks the boundary line between Ar- 

 gentina and Chile. So long as the countries 

 quarreled over their boundary and other mat- 

 ters, there could be no effective cooperation 

 in the great work of interoceanic railway con- 

 struction and maintenance. It was an Argen- 

 tine lady, Senora Angela de Costa, who con- 

 ceived and urged the plan of erecting on the 

 sublime eminence an enduring figure of the 

 Saviour of men, to solemnize the pledges 

 upon which the future peace was based. And 

 then, after forty years of thwarted effort, the 

 desired international cooperation began. 



In 1904 Dr. Manuel Quintana was elected 

 President; but he died two years later and 

 was succeeded by the Vice-President, Dr. Jose 

 Figueroa Alcorta. In 1910 Roque Saenz Pena 

 became the chief magistrate; and in the same 

 year the centennial of Argentine independence 

 was celebrated with great magnificence by an 

 exposition conducted at Buenos Aires. Upon 

 the death of President Saenz Peiia, Vice- 

 President Victorino del Plaza became Presi- 

 dent. 



Additional Facts of Interest. Argentina 

 mines several hundred tons of tungsten ore 

 each year. In this it is exceeded only by 

 Burma, the United States, Portugal and Aus- 

 tralia. 



Though the wheat crop of Argentina is 

 usually greater than that of Saskatchewan and 

 Alberta, the total elevator storage capacity of 

 the country in 1917 did not equal that of the 

 three Dominion elevators at Moose Jaw, Sas- 

 katoon and Calgary. In all Argentina outside 

 of the ports there are not as many elevators 

 as there are at the average railroad station 

 in the west of Canada or the United States. 



The most southerly town in the world is 

 Ushuaia, on Beagle Channel, established by 

 Argentina as a colony for desperate criminals. 

 It has about four hundred inhabitants. 



Argentina produces and exports nearly one- 

 half of the world's flaxseed. 



This country exports more corn than all the 

 other countries in the world combined, though 

 its annual production of two to three hundred 



million bushels is only one-tenth that of the 

 United St: 



The wheat crop is only from fifty to eighty 

 per cent that of Canada, but the yield per 

 acre is so much less that it requires from one 

 and one-fourth to one and one-half times the 

 acreage. 



The pampas is the name given to the vast 

 fertile plain sloping toward the sea which is 

 the cereal zone of the country. Most of the 

 very few trees in this region have been planted 

 by the settlers. 



Rio de la Plata means river of silver; Se- 

 bastian Cabot called it this because the natives 

 told him that there was a large amount of this 

 metal along its upper waters. Republica Ar- 

 gentina means silver republic; Buenos Aires is 

 literally good airs, and Tierra del Fuego is land 

 of fire. 



Argentina devotes 12,000,000 acres to alfalfa, 

 nearly three times as many as the United 

 States. 



During the Napoleonic wars the British occu- 

 pied Buenos Aires. This action showed the 

 people that Spain was helpless to protect them, 

 and when Napoleon made his brother Joseph 

 king of Spain a definite movement for inde- 

 pendence began. 



Till 1912 Argentina was Canada's best cus- 

 tomer outside of the British Empire and the 

 United States. Since that time, however, 

 Canadian business in South America has de- 

 creased. 



Seventy per cent of the agricultural imple- 

 ments imported into Argentina are manufac- 

 tured in the United States. 



The corncribs of Argentina are usually built 

 with walls of corn or cane stalks, and some 

 farmers grow small patches of cane solely for 

 this purpose. In building a troje, as a crib 

 is called, poles fifteen feet or more in length 

 are first placed in the ground in the form of 

 a circle, and wires are strung across the inside 

 of the poles. The stalks are not fastened, but 

 are held against the wires by the corn. 



The War of the Nations brought a great in- 

 crease in trade between Argentina and the 

 United States. During the first three months 

 of 1916, imports from the United States were 

 more than twice as great as for the correspond- 

 ing period in 1915. 



Tierra del Fuego is separated from the rest 

 of the country by a narrow body of water 

 whose name is known to every boy and girl 

 who has been to school the Straits of Ma- 

 gellan. B.8.N. 



