156 PATAGONIA AND SHEEP-REARING 



cattle to Chile and the export of cattle from the Neuquen 

 to Buenos Aires, to which I will refer presently. As 

 to sheep-breeding, it did not for a long time rear the 

 animals for the meat -market, and it is only a few years 

 since it found transport necessary. The farmers of 

 the Rio Negro, who have little capital, and who sell 

 and are paid in advance for their dry fodder, have not 

 yet been able to take advantage of the reorganization 

 of the cattle-trade. 



West of the confluence of the Neuquen and the Limay 

 the railway ascends the sandstone tableland, from 1,700 

 to 3,000 feet high, and goes as far as the foot of the first 

 sub-Andean chain, the Zapala ranch. The eruptive 

 rocks here have thrown up the sandstone, and the profiles 

 raised north and south of Zapala, across the Sierra de 

 la Vaca Muerta and the Cerro Lotena, cut through folds 

 of Mesozoic strata which have been reduced by erosion 

 to the level of the plateau. One already feels the 

 vicinity of the Cordillera. Pasture is plentiful, the mallin 

 is thick, and springs abound. The sheep-area stretches 

 westward of Zapala, as far as the Rio Cataluin and the 

 Rio Agrio. East of Zapala, on the other hand, the 

 desolate condition of the country gets worse and worse. 

 The supplies of water dry up in the summer, and the 

 entire zone that lies east of 70 W. long, is useless, 

 on account of the lack of permanent water, except as 

 winter commonage. Hence, transhumation is here 

 indispensable. It has been practised for a long time 

 on the Chilean slope of the Cordillera from the latitude 

 of Coquimbo and San Juan to the north of Lake Quillen. 

 At present it tends to disappear from the Andes of 

 the Neuquen. 1 But there is still transhumation on 



1 As a matter of fact, of recent years there has been a practice on 

 this slope of disguising the smuggling of animals under the name of 

 " transhumation," as the removal of the sheep facilitated it and helped 

 to maintain it. The shepherds got certificates exaggerating the 

 number of their sheep from the Chilean officials before they crossed 

 the frontier, and under cover of these they came back to Chile with 

 additions to their flocks which they had bought on Argentine territory. 



