454 



The National Geographic Magazine 



tenure in the interior, which it is hoped 

 the government will soon remedy. 



There are 245,000,000 acres of arable 

 and 235,000,000 acres of pastoral land, 

 and yet only 21,000,000 acres are under 

 cultivation, although the soil is equal 

 to that of Illinois and Nebraska and the 

 general conformation of the land not 

 unlike our central West. The number 

 of land-owners — that is, of farms and 

 ranches, not city and town lots — is only 

 225,000. Hundreds of individual men 

 in every state or province own each 

 from 75 to 300 square miles of land, 

 which will be ultimately divided up 

 into small holdings and will support a 

 great farming population. In short, 

 the major portion of Argentina is in the 

 same undeveloped agricultural condi- 

 tion as Kansas, Nebraska, and the Da- 

 kotas were 50 years ago. 



As commerce is often termed the 

 "life blood" of a nation, it is signifi- 

 cant that the foreign trade of Argentina 

 (imports and exports) for the year 1903 

 should have amounted to the remark- 

 able total of approximately $352 ,000,000, 

 an average of $70 per head — a figure 

 unequaled by any other country. The 

 imports from the United States were ap- 

 proximately $16,700,000, and the ex- 

 ports to the United States $8,125,000. 

 In imports the United States ranked 

 after Great Britain and Germany ; in 

 exports after Great Britain, France, 

 Germany, Belgium, Africa, and Brazil. 



THE GREATNESS OF OUR COUNTRY 



THE value of merchandise enter- 

 ing the world's international com- 

 merce is $11,000,000,000 per annum; 

 yet our country, young as it is, fur- 

 nishes today a larger value of domestic 

 exports entering that commerce than 

 does any other nation. A still greater 

 field and a still greater evidence of 

 our own business activity is found in 

 the measure of our internal commerce, 

 the domestic markets of the United 

 States, which of themselves aggregate 

 $22,000,000,000 per annum — a sum just 



twice that of the total international 

 commerce of the whole world." This 

 is a quotation from a recent address of 

 Hon. O. P. Austin, who continues : 



' ' Our area, including Alaska, is equal 

 to that of all Europe. Our total do- 

 mestic exports are practically one and 

 one-half billions of dollars and surpass 

 those of any other nation. Our total 

 money in circulation is more than two 

 and one-half billions of dollars and ex- 

 ceeds that of any other country. Our 

 total wealth is one hundred billions of 

 dollars and exceeds that of the United 

 Kingdom and Germany combined. The 

 gross value of our manufactures is thir- 

 teen billions of dollars per annum and 

 equals those of the United Kingdom, 

 Germany, and France combined. Our 

 railroads are two-fifths of the entire 

 railway systems of the world, and our 

 production of cotton, and corn, and 

 wheat, and pig-iron, and copper, and 

 all the chief articles which form the 

 bulk of the world's international com- 

 merce exceeds that of any other nation. ' ' 



Work for the Panama Canal. — Prelim- 

 inary work for the Panama Canal has 

 made considerable progress during the 

 past year. An engineering force is now 

 constructing a reservoir in the valley 

 of the upper Rio Grande, which will 

 furnish a minimum supply of 2,000,000 

 gallons a day for the city of Panama ; 

 also a distributing reservoir for the city 

 of Panama at Ancon. Surveys, plans, 

 and estimates for a sewerage system for 

 the city of Colon, and surveys and esti- 

 mates for establishing official grades for 

 the streets of Panama are also being 

 made. About 300 engineers have been 

 busily engaged in making surveys to 

 shorten and improve the line of the 

 canal and to determine sites for dams. 

 The canal commission report as follows 

 in regard to the digging of Culebra cut : 

 " When we took over the work the 

 French were removing about 25,000 

 cubic yards a month. We removed in 

 August about 37,000, in September a 



