444 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



has been built for the most part on the spoils that have been wrung from the 

 ill-fated Englishmen by publicans and usurers." * 



City of Cordoba. 



Cordoba, capital of the province and second largest city of the Eepublic west of 

 tbe Rio Parana, is one of the old settlements in South America, having been 

 founded by Cabrera in 1573, seven years before Buenos Ayres. Standing on the 

 right bank of the Rio Primero about 1,300 feet above the sea, it occupies the 

 deepest part of a valley excavated by the running waters between high lateral 

 cliffs ; to the west is seen the breach through which the waters escape between 

 two steep escarpments. 



Headquarters of the Jesuit rule for a period of two centuries, Cordoba till 

 recently still presented the dull aspect of an ecclesiastical town. But since 1870, 

 when it was brought into connection wâth the Argentine railway system, it has 

 again become a busy centre of trade and industry, as well as the rival of Buenos 

 Ayres in intellectual progress. The university, which had been established after 

 the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, and which, possessing neither books, instru- 

 ments, collections, nor professors, had hitherto taught little beyond " Church 

 Latin " and scholastic philosophy, was re-constituted in 1870 on a liberal basis, 

 and since then serious studies have been introduced by a staff of learned teachers, 

 for the most part German naturalists. 



An astronomic observatory, founded at the same time, holds an honorable posi- 

 tion amongst similar institutions, and has already done work of primary impor- 

 tance by the publication of a chart of the southern heavens. Cordoba also possesses 

 a meteorological institute, an academy of science, and various other learned institu- 

 tions. The atlas bearing the name of Scelstrang is in course of preparation at the 

 geographical bureau. 



Formerly Cordoba was greatly exposed to the ravages of torrents overflowing 

 their banks. A lateral branch of the Rio Primero, issuing from a gorge nearly 

 always dry, sent down at times sudden avalanches of mud and slush. A murallon 

 or dam constructed in 1671 still holds back the storm waters, and a similar work 

 on a colossal scale was recently undertaken to embank the Rio Primero. A barrage 

 erected at the issue from the mountains near San Roque arrested the flood waters, 

 and regulated the discharge, both for the supply of the city and for irrigation pur- 

 poses. Above this dyke, which is no less than 100 feet broad at the base, and 

 over 16 at the top, and 344 feet long, a navigable lake would have been created 

 with a depth of over 116 feet, a superficial area of 64 square miles, and a capacity 

 of over 9,000 million cubic feet. It would, in fact, have been the largest artificial 

 basin of the kind in the world. 



But, as has so often been the case elsewhere, the contractors had tried to effect 

 savings by the use of an inferior mortar for cementing these cyclopic walls, and 



I 

 * Kriight, op. cit., p. ]57. 



