PINES AND CEDARS 109 



the province of Misiones on the upper Parana. Posadas 

 is its chief station, and protects its southern outlet. 

 Its influence extends beyond the Argentine frontier, 

 over a small part of Brazil and Paraguay. In Misiones 

 there are two types of forest, which differ a good deal 

 from each other, while neither resembles the quebracho 

 forest. One is the forest of araucarias [pinos) which 

 covers the elevated tablelands at a height above 2,000 

 feet. The other is the tropical forest, rich in essences 

 and of perennial vegetation, which fills the bottoms 

 and slopes of the valleys. The pine, which is also much 

 worked on the Brazilian tableland, yields an excellent 

 white wood, suitable instead of the northern pine. 

 It would find a ready market at Buenos Aires, but it 

 has never been worked on Argentine territory because 

 of the great distance of the woods from a navigable 

 river. On account of its position on the tableland the 

 araucaria has to wait for the railways of some future 

 date. I As to the leafy tropical forest it includes a number 

 of useful varieties {Umbo, lapacho, etc), but the most 

 esteemed of all is the cedar. Its wood is rose-coloured, 

 scented, and fine-grained, and very suitable for furniture. 

 At the time of D'Orbigny's travels the inhabitants of 

 Corrientes were looking out for cedars from the mountains 

 brought down the river when in flood. The obrajes 

 of cedar-wood now extend twenty miles or so on the 

 Argentine bank, and forty miles in the Paraguay bank, 

 which is more even and better for transport. The 

 trunks are floated in rafts down to Posadas ; as the 

 cedar, which is less dense than the quebracho, not only 

 floats, but is improved by parting with sap in the water. 

 At Posadas the rafts are taken to pieces, and the trunks 

 are delivered to the saw-mills. 



But timber is not the chief forest industry in Misiones, 

 as it is on the Chaco. Beside the obraje in the forest 

 there is the yerbal, a works for dealing with the mate 



' In Brazil the saw-mills for the araucariaii pines are established 

 along the Sao Paolo-Rio Grande Railway. 



