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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 







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Photograph from Harriet Chalmers Adams 



AN AMERICAN COPPER MINE IN THE CHILEAN ANDES 



If poverty-stricken in verdure, northern Chile is superlatively rich in minerals. Here two 

 rival American mining companies operate gigantic copper properties. A railroad from a port 

 on the Pacific ascends the mountains by way of this canyon, 3,000 feet deep, to the American 

 mine. 



sider its gradual slope from ocean bed to 

 crowning summit. Young, as compared 

 with other great -ranges, it is still the 

 giant among them. 



These heights are the home of the rov- 

 ing guanaco and vicuna, wild cousins of 

 the llama and alpaca, all of cameloid 

 stock. Here soars the mighty condor. 

 A little to the north lies a highland 

 plateau known as the Pampa of the 

 Ostrich, where an occasional rhea, once 



so abundant on the Argentine plains, still 

 roams. 



One afternoon we rode past a natural 

 rock fortress with innumerable windows. 

 At each opening squatted a wise little 

 gray viscacha, gazing out over the plain. 

 A southern naturalist told me of the re- 

 markable habits of these strange rodents. 



"In Argentina," he said, "the farmers 

 endeavor to destroy whole colonies of 

 viscachas by filling in the openings to 



