TOPOGRAPHY OF ARGENTINA. 457 



To reach the Neuquen district from Buenos Ayres the traveller has first to 

 take the railway as far as Mendoza under the mountains, and then the diligence 

 to San Rafael, beyond which point the journey has to be continued for some 300 

 miles on foot or on horseback, over hills and valleys, across torrents and almost 

 trackless forests. Or he may take an alternative route by starting from the 

 station of Hucal, a settlement in the wilderness communicating by rail with Bahia 

 Blanca. Beyond Hucal the track crosses the solitudes to the Rio Xegro, which 

 may then be followed to the region of its head-streams. 



A few military posts founded in the Upper Neuquen basin hive served as so 

 many little centres of colonisation, and a number of stockbreeders have established 

 themselves in the neighbourhood. In the Rio Limay valley also the zone of 

 pastures has already received some settlers, and here vast tracts of land have been 

 conceded to the officers of the military expedition, by which this region was first 

 occupied in 186f5. 



Chos-Malal, administrative capital of the territory, forms a little cluster of 

 houses at the confluence of the Leubu with the Neuquen, where the main stream 

 begins to be navigable for small craft. Norquen, another lirtle settlement about 

 18 miles to the south-west, stands on the banks of the Rio Agrio, which 'here 

 escapes from a breached crater. In the immediate vicinity are seen the Copahue 

 thermal and mineral springs bubbling up at an altitude of 10,000 feet, and at 

 temperatures varying from 10 i*^ to 207'^ Fahr. 



Farther south Junin de los Andes, the Huiiica Melleu of tbe Indians, has been 

 founded at an elevation of 2,230 feet in the Rio Chemen Huiu Valley within view 

 of the magnificent cypress and beech forests, which have already been attacked 

 by the woodman. The lumber is floated down in rafts to Carmen de Patagones. 

 Junin has the advantage of lying near a relatively low pass over the great 

 Cordillera leading directly down to Yaldivia, chief market of these Andean 

 settlements. 



The whole region from San Rafael to the Nahuel-Huapi is the " Switzerland of 

 Argentina," a land of majestic mountains, of bright AljDine vegetation, of limpid 

 running waters. Near the Lonquimay volcano, commanding one of the more 

 frequented passes between the Neuquen and Biobio Valleys, a geyser of blue 

 water is ejected to a height of about 50 feet from an extinct crater whose 

 encircling margin is now covered with ice. 



Below this upland basin the few stations on (he Limay, and lower down on 

 the Rio Negro proper to the neighbourhood of its estuary, are all of military 

 origin. This rainless zone has naturally failed to attract free settlers, although 

 Roca, below the Neuquen-Lima}'- confluence, stands on an alluvial plain extremely 

 productive wherever capable of irrigation. But the canals run dry in summer, 

 and the fields are often ravaged by locusts. A small steamer ascends the river 

 fi-om Carmen to Roca during the floods, from July to February. 



Bej^ond the Rio Negro in the direction of the south follows the valley of the 

 Chubut, which has scarcely any white settlers except near the estuary. Since 

 1888, however, a few English, Chilian, and Argentine cattle-breeders have 



