TOPOGEAPHY OF AEGENTINA. 



433 



Lonfo, Ataminquij Salavina, are also agricultural settlements, which, like 

 Santiago, have suffered from the floods and shiftings of the Eio Dulce. A little 

 north of the fertile Carapo del Cielo, " Elysian Fields," is seen the famous 

 meteoric block, which, when studied by a scientific commission in 1788, formed a 

 mass of about 2-jO cubic feet, weighing 4o tons, and containing one-tenth of 

 nickel. Since then it has been greatly reduced by chipj)ing, and numerous frag- 

 ments are preserved in various museums. The ground round about is strewn 

 with other meteorites of smaller size. Matara, also an agricultural settlement, 

 stands on the Eio Juramento, near the fords formerly used by the Mocovi and 



Fig. 170. — Andalgala and Mt. Aconquija. 

 Scale 1 : 1,100,000. 



?7 



( ( 



.T" ■-^•s,,. 





'^^'f-^m 



Medir 



, r}?-' 



& rarer 



West or ureenwicH 



■66° 



65°30' 



» 55 Miles. 



Abipon Indians ; hence this place was much exposed to the incursions of those 

 predatory tribes. Matara was the starting point of an easy route, which here 

 traversed the solitudes of Gran Chaco in the direction of Corrientes. 



Towns of the Province of Catamarca. 



South-west of Tucuman stretches the mountainous province of Catamarca, 

 bounded eastwards by the Aconquija range and its offshoots. Catamarca, the 

 provincial capital, stands at an altitude of 1,880 feet on the Rio del Valle, which 



