146 PATAGONIA AND SHEEP-REARING 



fire and difficult of access, is partly composed of trees 

 that are too old. The libocedrus has disappeared from 

 one-third of it. The larch, which is the most valuable, 

 passes into Argentine territory at few places. Saw- 

 mills are not so numerous on the eastern slope of the 

 Andes as they are in the Magellan area. 



The essential function of the forest is, according to 

 Argentine experts on forestry, to control the water- 

 circulation. In this land of glacial erosion and recent 

 captures, where the water-courses have always a great 

 variety of form, and there are lakes to make their out- 

 put more regular, it is particularly easy to make use 

 of hydraulic power. " White coal" will, Bailey Willis 

 says, make a great industrial region of it, and plant an 

 urban life in it. Bailey Willis, whose optimism and 

 prophetic gift will not fail to surprise the European 

 reader, has drawn the plans in detail of a future town 

 of 40,000 souls at the eastern end of Lake Nahuel 

 Huapi. The Patagonian land will supply the raw 

 material of its industries ; timber, leather, and wool. 



One, at least, of the indispensable conditions of the 

 development of urban life is fully realized in the 

 district of Lake Nahuel Huapi and the Limay. It 

 is a remarkable meeting-place of natural roads, and 

 its economic value will increase in the future. It 

 is the point where the road from eastern Patagonia 

 by the sub-Andean depression, from the Gulf of San 

 Antonio on the Atlantic, and from the Rio Negro by 

 the Limay, and the roads that lead to Chile across the 

 Cordillera, meet. The whole zone of the Andes between 

 36 S. lat. and 42 S. lat., the latitude of the southern 

 part of the Chilean plain, has numerous and easy 

 passes. There has always been close communication 

 between the two slopes, and people have emigrated 

 freely from one to the other. But north of 39 S. lat. 

 the passes are rarely lower than 5,000 feet. They are 

 covered with snow in the winter, and can be used for 

 traffic only in certain seasons. It is not the same 



