138 PATAGONIA AND SHEEP-REARING 



the north, therefore, along the eastern foot of the 

 Andes. Bailey Willis calculated that there were 

 2,000 Chileans in a total population of 3,500 in the 

 sub-Andean area from Nahuel Huapi to Diez y seis 

 de Octubre, The total number of Chilean immigrants 

 may be about 20,000. It is not on the increase, as 

 immigration from Chile was suspended from 1890 

 to 1895. Since the reconstruction of the frontier the 

 Chilean Government has tried to bring back part 

 of the emigrants to its own territory. Many have 

 gone to settle in the valley of the Lonquimay. In 

 1896 Moreno saw traces everywhere in the valley of 

 the Collon Cura of the departure of Chilean colonists 

 who had left the country. 



At first it was only the Argentinians of the western 

 provinces, San Juan and Mendoza, who vied with 

 the Chileans for the soil. It is they whom Furque 

 found in 1888 at Roca, on the Rio Negro. But begin- 

 ning with 1890-95, immigrants of various nationalities 

 have settled on the Neuquen and the Negro. ^ Foreign 

 capitalists organized their first ranches there. In 

 1888, on the other hand, the Welsh of the lower Chubut, 

 led by Indian guides, went from the coast to the sub- 

 Andean region, and settled in the valley of Diez y seis 

 de Octubre. Between 1895 and 1900 the neighbouring 

 valleys began to be inhabited, and the colonization 

 areas of Nahuel Huapi and the Sanguerr came into 

 contact. 2 



The most striking feature of colonization in Patagonia 

 is the very low density of population. The Census 



' Furque, " Descripcion del Pueblo General Roca," Bol, Instit. 

 Geog. Argent., ix. 1888, pp. 124-132. 



» In spite of their importance we must regard as mere episodes 

 in the story of Patagonian colonization the influx of population caused 

 on the eastern coast by the discovery of placer-gold at Cape Virgenes 

 and on the Atlantic coast of Tierra del Fuego (1884), and the discovery 

 of petroleum at Rivadavia (1907) in the course of drilling in search 

 of water. Rivadavia is already, with its 3,000 inhabitants, one of 

 the chief centres in Patagonia. 



