The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

414 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA.
has been built for the most part on the spoils that have been M^rung from the
ill-fated Englishmen by publicans and usui'ers." *
City of Cordoba.
Cordoba, capital of the province and second largest city of the Republic west of
the 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 with 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
nith 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 cff'ect
savings by the use of an inferior mortar for cementing these cyclojDic walls, and
* Kiiiglit, op. cit., p. Iu7.