462 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



possible advantages — good anchorage in deep sheltered waters, facilities of defence, 

 proximity to a large city, a copious river, rich coalfields and métallurgie works. 



But Government regulations have driven much of the local trade to other 

 ports in the bay, such as Penco on the east side, where Concepcion had been 

 originally founded, and Tome, close to the entrance on the same side and at the 

 terminus of the line from Chilian. Including all these ports the total annual 

 shipping of the Talcahuano basin falls little short of 3,000,000 tons. 



Arauco — Yaldivia — Maullin — Chacao. 



Arauco Bay, south of Concepcion, is a repetition of the Talcahuano inlet, but on 

 a larger scale, and with a much wider entrance. The town of Arauco, which gives 

 its name to the district and province, and which is itself derived from the Araucan 

 Indians, from whom it was wrested, is a quiet little trading station, whereas 

 Coronel and Lota, on the east side of the bay, are active industrial centres. Here 

 the carboniferous beds of the tertiary epoch have been surveyed for a space of 

 nearly 100 miles along the coast south of Tome. They are easily worked, and the 

 coal, although inferior to the English fuel, is far superior to that of most other 

 regions. Since its introduction to the market in 1855, its use has become general, 

 not only in Chili, but along the whole of the Pacific seaboard. The yearly output 

 of the Arauco district already exceeds 400,000 tons, and here the deepest shaft 

 traverses three successive beds down to a depth of 920 feet. Most of the coal is 

 used up on the spot in the glass-works, brickfields and copper-foundries of Lota 

 and Coronel, the most active manufacturing centres in Chili. Lehu, at the mouth 

 of a rivulet outside the bay, does a considerable export trade in coal, but the 

 copper-mines of the neighbouring Sierra have hitherto been neglected. 



Nacimiento and Angol, in the Biobio basin south-east of Concepcion, as well 

 as Los Angeles, Mulchen, CoUipnlU, Traigiien, all lie in territory which the 

 Araucanians had recovered from the Spaniards, and which the Chilians are now 

 gradually re-occupying by the insidious processes of colonisation and the sale of 

 strong drinks to the natives. 



East of Traigvien, the most advanced station in this direction, the railway 

 is carried over the Hio Malleco by a fine viaduct 1,400 feet long and 310 feet 

 above the stream. Farther south, the Chilian settlers in the Rio Cauten valley have 

 assumed a very aggressive attitude towards the Indians. After occupying Nueva 

 Lmperial thej^ have pushed forward as far as Temuco, half way to the Andes, and 

 the whole country must soon be annexed, for it is one of the healthiest agricultural 

 regions in the whole of Chili. 



VakUvia, a name recalling the first years of the Conquest, occupies a position 

 somewhat analogous to that of Concepcion, lying on the banks of a considerable 

 stream at some distance from the coast, where it possesses the port of El Corral, 

 sheltered by a rocky headland from the west winds. At present the chief exports 

 are hides, lumber, cattle and " lager beer," for Yaldivia is half German. 



Puerto Phillppi and Puerto Domeyho, at the extremity of the Chilian mainland. 



