no THE WORLD'S MEAT EUTURE 



The Argentine Mesopotamia 



" The watershed of the River Plate basin is collected from 

 three sources, to wit : — 



"(1) The Cordillera of the Andes, which from latitude 

 25 deg. in N.W. Argentina rapidly widens to its maximum at 

 the Bolivian 'massif' in latitude 15 deg., where it almost 

 touches ; (2) the central highlands of Brazil, dividing the 

 Amazon and the River Plate systems ; and, finally, (3) the 

 coast range of Brazil, which starts between the towns of Bahia 

 and Rio de Janeiro, also in the latitude 15 deg., and terminates 

 in the rounded foothills of Uruguay. 



" The Brazilian highlands, as they lie sprawling over the 

 centre of the South American map, may be likened to an ill- 

 formed kite. The head, pointing to the Amazon, is fringed by 

 the affluents of that inland sea. The lower sides are stiffened 

 by mountain ranges, that acquire the occasional dignity of 

 5000 ft. As the tail of the kite, some 600 miles long, passes 

 southward through Paraguay, this height drops steadily to 

 1000 ft. At this altitude the range halts finally on the northern 

 boundary of Argentina, overlooking the network of swamps 

 and lazy streams that gives its name to the province of Cor- 

 rientes. 



" In the wide valley between the Andes and the western 

 slopes of this range flows the river Paraguay. Between the 

 east of the same and the hills of the Atlantic coast lies the 

 course of the Parana. Not the .plain Parana of the south, 

 but known here in its upper channels as the Paranahyba, or, 

 more generally and simply, the ' Alto Parana.' 



" It would have greatly simplified the geography of all this 

 watershed if the Parana had been able to keep to the eastern 

 side on which it originally started. It would then have en- 

 i- I'd the Plate estuary by the present bed of the Uruguay, 

 which would in its turn have figured simply as one of the tribu- 

 taries entering the great river from the Brazilian coast range. 

 But just north of the spot where their junction would have 

 taken place, a spur of hills juts out, forming a right angle, 

 and almost joining up with the Paraguayan highlands — the 

 tail of the kite. Xow, in its hurried upper course, the Parana 



