258 THE RIVER-ROUTES 



and cedar-planks from the Posadas saw-mills. Rafts 

 of timber are stopped at Posadas and rarely follow 

 the river further. 



The Argentine statistics of navigation are obscure. 

 They confuse under one heading the river-traffic 

 between Posadas and Brazilian territory, or between 

 Corrientes and the Paraguay, and the exports of the 

 Pampean region to Europe. It is difficult to get 

 from them an idea of the real traffic, or to distinguish 

 the tonnage loaded or unloaded at each port from 

 that which merely touches its quays in ships going 

 up or coming down the river. They credit a score of 

 ports with a total tonnage of (entries and clearances 

 together) more than 500,000 tons. 



At all events, they do enable us to distinguish between 

 ports exclusively devoted to river traffic and those 

 with direct relations to oversea ports. Nearly all the 

 boats destined for the Parana touch at Buenos Aires, 

 which remains the chief importing centre, on the way 

 up, and unload there. They then go empty to Rosario, 

 San Nicolas, or Santa Fe to take on a full cargo of 

 cereals or timber, and set out down the Parana for 

 Europe without calling at Buenos Aires. Clearances 

 for interior navigation at the port of Buenos Aires are 

 far more numerous than entries. From 1912 to 1914 

 Buenos Aires received on the average, coming from 

 interior ports, 1,750,000 tons, of which 1,635,000 were 

 cargo. It cleared for the same ports ships totalling 

 3,275,000 tons, of which 1,580,000 were in ballast. 

 The latter figure fairly represents the tonnage of sea- 

 going ships sent up river empty after discharging on 

 the quays of Buenos Aires. At Rosario, San Nicolas 

 and San Pedro, on the other hand, the tonnage of 

 clearances lor Argentine ports is much less than the 

 tonnage of entries. 1 The total movement of goods at 



1 Movement of internal navigation at Rosario (average 1912-1914) : 

 entries, 1,108,000 tons, of which 690,000 in ballast; clearances, 

 580,000 tons. At San Nicolas : entries, 400,000 tons, of which 



