REORGANIZATION OF ROADS 215 



construction of the railway system. But the great 

 importance of it can be seen from the first half of 

 the nineteenth century. D'Orbigny had a presenti- 

 ment of it. Speaking of the future of Santa Fe, he 

 says : " When peace is restored, it is certain that the 

 wares of Cordoba may, instead of going by land from 

 that town to Buenos Aires, be sent to Santa Fe, where 

 shipping them to the Argentine capital will reduce to 

 one-third the journey by land, which is always more 

 costly than going by water." Martin de Moussy, 

 foreseeing the making of a road across the Chaco 

 from Tucuman to the Parana, in the latitude of 

 Corrientes, calculates that Corrientes may later serve 

 as port for part of the west and north of Argentina. 

 At the date of the publication of his book, however, 

 it was neither Santa Fe nor Corrientes, but the new 

 town Rosario, that began to play the part of interior 

 port, and led to the construction of a new system of 

 roads. Traffic between Rosario and Cordoba at first 

 followed the old road from Buenos Aires to Peru, 

 which one struck after leaving Rosario and making a 

 detour to the south-west, on the right bank of the 

 Carcarana (at Rio Tercero). But this itinerary was 

 presently replaced by a direct road to the west-north- 

 west, following the line which the railways would 

 adopt. 1 



In the greater part of Argentina transport was by 



1 Between 1852 and 1862, during the period when relations were 

 suspended between the Argentine Confederation and Buenos Aires, 

 there was a beginning of a general reorganization of the roads in 

 harmony with the new political conditions. The road from Santa 

 Fe and Parana to Concepci6n (in Uruguay) across the Entre Rios 

 tablelands, and from there to Montevideo, had owed its initial import- 

 ance to the closing of the lower Parana under Rosas, and Woodbine 

 Parish records that there was already a good deal of smuggling there. 

 This road became an essential artery when Parana made itself the 

 federal capital under Urquiza. He intended to connect Parana with 

 the western provinces, and he created a mail service from Santa Fe" 

 to C6rdoba. Ephemeral as the good fortune of Parana was, its 

 influence on the organization of the roads of Argentina was too material 

 to be ignored by the geographer. 



