230 ROADS AND RAILWAYS 



autumn. Hence the removal of the maize is spread 

 over a long period, and sometimes the work of one 

 year runs into that of the next. This gives the Central 

 an advantage over the other lines. The wool also 

 must, on account of its great value, be transferred to 

 the ports speedily after the shearing ; but this is only 

 a matter of about a hundred thousand tons.^ 



Export, however, is by no means the one source of 

 traffic on the Argentine railways. Transport of goods 

 for home consumption is chiefly a question of a large 

 part of the wheat crop. Building materials also — 

 bricks, lime and stone — are an important item on 

 the various lines which link Buenos Aires with the 

 Sierra de Cordoba and the Sierra de Tandil. In 1913 

 the Southern line carried 1,134,000 tons of minerals, 

 including 997,000 tons of stone and 101,000 tons of 

 lime from the Sierra de Tandil and 34,000 tons of 

 salt from the salt-mines of Lavalle, between Bahia 

 Blanca and the Colorado. In the same year, the 

 Pacific, Central Argentine, Central Cordoba and State 

 railway carried 880,000 tons of minerals (half being 

 lime) from the Sierra de Cordoba. 2 All the timber 

 carried on the lines of northern Argentina, except the 

 quebracho from the banks of the Parana, is for home 

 use : sleepers, fence-posts, firewood and charcoal are 

 the chief items on most of the lines in the scrub. The 

 war has checked railway construction and reduced 

 the use of sleepers, but it has also deprived Argentina 

 of combustible minerals and increased the transport 

 of firewood. Even on railways like the Pacific and 

 Central Argentine, which have very few of their lines 

 on the scrub, the tonnage of wood carried is 6 per 



' The war and the difficulties of marine freightage have lessened 

 the seriousness of the problem of carrying goods rapidly by rail in 

 Argentina. 



2 The transport of mineral stuff, apart from salt, has been greatly 

 reduced by the war. In 1916 it was only 637,000 tons for the Southern 

 and 157,000 tons for the whole of the lines of the Central Argentine, 

 Pacific, Central Cordoba, and State. 



