THE GREAT FORESTS 107 



scattered over about ten degrees of latitude, north of 

 30° S. lat., within reach of the river, which keeps them 

 in communication with the world, and at the same time 

 has enabled them to tackle the full breadth of the forest. 

 The quebracho is particularly abundant north of Santa 

 Fe and south of the Argentine part of the Chaco, where 

 it is the life and soul of the forest. The works which 

 have been set up there, in the midst of the denser 

 forests, have plenty of capital, and this enables them 

 to nurse their supplies and buy timber at a distance. 

 The forest is still almost virginal at their gates, so that 

 they have a long future in front of them. On the other 

 hand, the oldest works, on the southern fringe of the 

 forest, and that of Corrientes, on the left bank of the 

 Parana, are already paralysed for want of timber. 



The works are all at a short distance from the river ; 

 not only for convenience of exporting their products, 

 but because this is the only part of the Chaco where one 

 can find fresh water. And the tannic-acid factory needs 

 a great deal of fresh water. Along the river, in a belt 

 about thirty to sixty miles wide, we find a permanent 

 hydrographic network such as is found nowhere else 

 on the plain. It consists of long series of marshes 

 covered with rushes (canadas), and in places they be- 

 come at their mouths regular streams with well defined 

 beds. The underground water also is generally fresh 

 and plentiful, whether it is due to the abundant rain 

 or to infiltration from the Parana, and many of the works 

 have successfully bored for it. In these parts one suffers 

 from too much water as frequently as from thirst. On 

 these immense and almost horizontal surfaces the water 

 spreads from the canadas over the whole forest. The 

 railway, and even the houses, then stand out of a sheet 

 of stagnant water, which takes months to disappear. 

 Trunks which are badly placed, lying in the stations 

 to be removed — sometimes, according to the market, 

 lying there for years — are half buried in the mud. 

 The waggons find it hard to move in the roads. Mules, 



