The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

SOCIAL CONDITION OF AEGENTINA. 471
mount the high river banks and cross the streams with the water up to the axles
of their enormous wheels.
But these resources, adequate for a rudimentary traffic, had to give way to
steam when the transport trade began to acquire a serious doveloijuient. The
growth of railway enterprise thus corresponds to that of material progress in
other directions, and at present the Argentine system rivals that of several
European States ; compared with the respective populations it even exceeds them
all, Belgium not excepted. But compared with the extent of the territory the
proportion is less favourable to Argentina, where the population is thinly scattered
over a region of vast extent.
The lines are distributed very unequally over this region. Round the two
Fig. 184.
—
Route op the Tbansandine Railway.
Scale 1 : 1,600,000.
y\ t :,H c n h
30 Miles.
chief centres, Buenos Ayres and Rosario, they radiate in all directions, and also
atTord concurrent routes parallel with the great navigable artery of the Parana.
But the northern provinces are not entirely traversed as far as the Bolivian
frontier, while towards the west the passes over the Andes had not yet been
reached in 1894. Southwards the system extends no farther than Bahia Blanca,
beyond which in the whole of Patagonia there exists only the short line con-
necting the Welsh colony on the Rio Chubut with its port on the Golfo Nuevo.
On the whole the traffic on the Argentine railways is considerable, both as
regards passengers and merchandise. But the cost of construction, averaging
about £7,300 per mile, seems very high for a country needing so few cuttings,
levellings, or other expensive works. This outlay, however, which is guaranteed
by the State for one-third of the lines, is explained by reckless speculation, loans