The Argentine Republic: Its Development and Progress

But the different scenes of the river region are most of all due to different conditions of erosion and formation. Above Rosario the configuration is due to floods. Each succeeding flood alters it and leaves some trace of itself in the topography. The beds of sand that it lays down are fixed by rushes and floating weeds, then by willows (Salix humboldtiana). This screen of vegetation encourages accretion, and the edges tend to rise higher. In the middle of the island are low, marshy lands. The irregularity of the alluvial deposits causes marked undulations in the whole region of the river, and everywhere gives rise to alternate beds of clay and sand. Below Rosario the river gradually loses its power. The islands become more stable and flatter. Clumps of willow and spiny ceibos (Erythrina cristagalli) still cover the edges of them, and sometimes spread over the interior. But as the climate is now less humid, the vegetation fixes the soil less firmly, and the wind becomes the chief sculptor of the landscape. It heaps up the sand during the low-water season, and makes dunes which rise above the level of the greatest floods. These dunes form an unbroken line along the land in the southern part of Entre Rios, in the north of the main arm, with ridges at right angles, advancing toward the south, which rest upon the river clay; like the one which the Ibicuy railway follows across the floodable area. The cattle of the district take refuge on the dunes during floods. During periods of drought, on the other hand, they retain a quantity of water, and this is drawn from surface-wells at their base.

The limits of the zone of the river are clearly marked on the whole of the lower Paraná. It is enclosed on both sides by high barrancas (cliffs), vertical in places where the main current washes their feet, but sloping slightly where there is only a secondary arm with little erosive power. The cliff is broken only at the confluences of small valleys, the flat, filled-up bottoms of which are on the level of the alluvial plain of the Paraná. The cliffs are at their highest in the district of Villa Paraná, where they rise in places to a height of 300 feet. On the right bank the cliffs show a section of the upper layers of the Pampean clays. On the left bank there are æolian clays only at the top of them. Below these are Tertiary marine strata (marls and sandstones with beds of shells). The cliffs of the left bank stretch northwards, with a few breaks, as far as Corrientes, and even into Misiones. Their height gradually diminishes, and the Tertiary marine strata are replaced by granitic red sandstone.125 On the right bank the height of the cliffs gradually diminishes up river. They are still conspicuous at the confluence of the Carcaraña, but at Santa Fé they rise only about thirty-four feet. North of 31° S. lat., and for some distance beyond Pilcomayo, the plain of the Chaco is very low, and it is impossible to define exactly the limit of the alluvial zone of the Paraná. The fine clays, grey and white, which form the soil of the Chaco, reach the left bank north of Corrientes, in the esteros of Neembucu. The red sandstone hills of the Asunción district rise like an archipelago out of this level bed of lacustrine deposits.

There is no obstacle to navigation in the entire stretch from Posadas to the falls of the Guayra on the Paraná and the Salto Grande on the Yguassa. Sixteen miles below Posadas the Paraná passes through a series of graduated rapids for about sixty miles (1,467 kil. to 1,558 kil. from Buenos Aires) wrongly called the Salto de Apipé. The current then rises to a speed of eight knots, and the depth is three feet at low water. These rapids are due to beds of melaphyre, which emerge amongst the granitic sandstone, and the water makes its way between large rocky islands. At Ituzaingo (1,455 kil.) the current loses force. There is, however, still a rocky bottom lower down, for ninety miles, at a depth of five feet. Below this the rock only appears on the left bank, and in a few ridges near the bank, or in isolated reefs which it has been easy to mark with buoys.

From Corrientes to La Paz the river flows from north to south at the feet of the Corrientes cliffs. These line the main stream between Corrientes and Empedrado, and for thirty-five miles south of Bella vista. In the latitude of Riachucho, especially about Bellavista, the cliffs form a series of creeks and capes, in which the west winds create a heavy sea that was dreaded by ships of light draught coming down the river. North of Bellavista, and for more than a hundred miles south of Goya, the main stream is separated from the cliff by a series of alluvial islands; behind these are lateral arms (riachos) into which pour the rivers of Corrientes. These arms were much used by the early navigators.

Between Esquina and La Paz the main bed, which is not in touch with the land on either of its banks, flows in a meandering path for some seven miles, the scale of the bends being double that of the meandering of the Paraguay north of the confluence. The islands are very small, and are strung in a rosary at the top of each bend. The depth is sixty feet at the top of the bend. The shallows are in a line with the islands at the point where the current runs evenly again before the next curve. The depth here is seven, and sometimes even five feet.126 These shallows change their places quickly, and it is not always the same bad spot that determines the maximum draught for ships that are to be used in this section. This migration of the shallows is very different from the permanence of the rocky bottom of the stretch between Corrientes and Posadas.

From La Paz to Paraná the main course is outlined by the Entre Rios cliffs. There is no further meandering. The cliffs of hard rock offer far more resistance than the soft alluvia over which the river wanders freely. The permanence of the bed in front of the cliffs leads to a depth of as much as eighty feet. Only here and there a fringe of alluvial stuff separates the channel for a time from the cliff. These curves seem, as a rule, to coincide with the confluence of rivers, which bring a heavy load of clay from the tableland; as, does, for instance, the San Feliciano, north of Hernandarias. They are marked by shallows, in strong contrast to the great depths of the straight sections. The San Feliciano paso, which is twelve feet broad to-day, was only six feet broad in 1908. It appeared on Sullivan's map in 1847.127

Below Paraná, as far as the estuary, the careful observations that have been made since 1903 on the movement of the river have enabled us to learn some of its laws.128 We can distinguish four sections of unequal length. From Paraná to Diamante the river remains in touch with the cliffs of the left bank. It is not straight; it describes a series of linked crescents of equal radius, which seem to be traces of so many meanders. Only one in two of the windings of the cliff is followed by the channel. The wandering of the river is confined within limits as in a fixed mould. The Paracao shallow, which for a long time prevented ships from reaching Santa Fé (gradually deepened by dredging from eight to nineteen feet between 1907 and 1911) is at the angle where two of these curves meet. On the right bank the secondary arms continue to follow the river (Paraná viejo, Riacho de Coronda).129

Below Diamante the river leaves the cliff on the left bank and slants across the alluvial plain to the cliff on the right bank, which it reaches at San Lorenzo. Over the whole of its thirty miles width it resumes the freedom and regularity of features which it had above La Paz. A comparison of the successive maps of the river shows that the scheme of its movements, which one would be tempted to draw up with a regular migration of the islands and loops down river, would not be accurate. The changes of the bed of the river are essentially due to variations in the volume of the different arms, which are constantly changing their size and adapting their shape to the body of water that flows in them. The radius of the curve of each arm is proportional to its volume. A long island is formed between two arms of equal size which both describe symmetrical curves. If the volume of one of them is reduced, its original curve is replaced by sinuosities of smaller radius, and these nibble the edges of the island and give it an irregular shape. If the volume increases again, the winding bed is abandoned and becomes a dead bed, and a larger meander begins. The track followed by the ships then breaks up into a series of meanders over a course of about eight miles and a half, and this means the concentration in a single channel of the greater part of the water of the river, and in narrower bends in the sections where the current is divided between several arms.

From San Lorenzo to San Pedro the river flows by the cliff of the right bank. It is remarkably regular, and has only one slight bend: an exceptionally good site, on which the town of Rosario is built. At almost equal intervals, differing by only about ten to thirteen miles, the river leaves the cliff, and is separated from it by an alluvial strand, or by an insular zone a few miles in width.130 Below this bend the current again touches the cliff and landing is easy. The small, older ports of the Paraná—Constitución, San Nicolas, Puerto Obligado and San Pedro—are built on similar sites. It does not seem that the islands at the foot of the cliff tend to extend downward in front of these ports; the points where the river reaches the cliff are fixed. The depth is often considerable at the foot of the cliff (138 feet opposite Puerto Obligado). The shoals are distributed irregularly at the bends, where the channel moves away from the cliff. They all have to-day a minimum depth of twenty-one feet.131 On the left bank the secondary arms sprawl over the alluvial plain for thirty-five miles north of the river.

The delta begins at San Pedro. The Paraná Guazu, or main arm, leaves the cliff on the right bank and passes to the Uruguayan bank opposite Carmelo. The Paraná de las Palmas, which branches off from it to the south and passes before Campana and Zarate at the foot of the tableland, is deep and easy to navigate, but it is closed at the bottom of the estuary by a six-foot bar, which makes it a sort of blind alley opened only above. The arms of the zone of the delta differ from those of the river-zone proper in the irregularity of their course. Flowing between long islands, they sometimes lie in straight stretches and at other times in meanders or almost perfect buckles. The channels of the southern part of the delta, near Buenos Aires, are called caracoles (snails) on account of their winding shape. The weakness of the current, which is held up by the tide, is seen also in the distribution of the greater depths; they are no longer uniformly found along the concave edge of the bends, but are scattered irregularly. On the Paraná Guazu a depth of 130 feet has been ascertained. Its minimum depth is twenty-two feet.

The study of the estuary may be taken separately from that of the river. It consists of three parts, unequal in size, which open with increasing breadth toward the Atlantic. The upper Rio de la Plata, above Colonia and Puntá Lara, has a width of about thirty-five miles. The middle Plata, twice as wide, extends to the latitude of Montevideo and Puntá de las Piedras. Then the outer harbour opens between Maldonado and Puntá Rasa. The water is still fresh in the middle estuary up to eighty miles below Buenos Aires.

The bottom is alluvial except in the channels between Martin Garcia and Colonia.132 Differently from up the river, where the channels have sandy bottoms, while the banks are of fine clay, the channels of the estuary have bottoms of mud and clay. In the outer harbour the pilots recognize the approach of banks by the sand which is brought up by the sounding-lead. The action of the waves, which is not found in the river, accumulates stuff of comparatively large size and weight on the banks.

In spite of the conclusions embodied in the nautical instructions, which describe the estuary as a theatre of rapid changes "occasioned by the continual deposits of sand brought down by the Paraná and the Uruguay,"133 the estuary is, as a matter of fact, in a remarkable state of equilibrium, and there is no trace of a gradual accumulation of alluvia, or of important changes of channel. The shore of the delta north of the Paraná de las Palmas, covered with rushes which protect it from the attack of the waves, shows neither advance nor retreat. The broad lines of the hydrography of the Rio de la Plata are plainly indicated on Woodbine Parish's map. The English Navy map of 1869 (on the basis of observations in 1833, 1844 and 1856) only differs in detail from the present map. The stability of the channels is surprisingly different from the changes in the bed of the river in the flood-zone. The permanence of the bottom, in spite of the loose deposits of the estuary, is explained by the regularity of the currents. These currents, which determine the submarine topography of the Rio de la Plata and the distribution of the banks, are not of river origin. They are tidal currents.

There are two groups of shoals in the estuary. The first, the Playa Honda, occupies the whole western part of it up to a line drawn from Buenos Aires to Colonia. These banks leave a narrow passage in the north, opposite the Uruguayan shore, and this is followed by ships going to Uruguay and the Paraná Guazu. The second group of shoals is the Ortiz Bank, triangular in shape, which rests in the north on the Uruguay coast below Colonia, while its point extends south-eastward to eighteen miles north of the Puntá de las Piedras. It keeps the zone of deepest water in the middle estuary to the south, near the Argentine shore. In the latitude of the point of the Ortiz Bank, on a line from Montevideo to Puntá de las Piedras, the middle estuary is separated from the outer harbour by a bar (barra del Indio) with thirty-eight feet of water, caused by the transverse currents which circulate from point to point inside the English Bank.

The tide in the estuary is very irregular. The south-east winds increase the flow and retard the ebb. When they are blowing, it often happens that the level of the water in the upper estuary keeps up from one tide to the next, sometimes for several days. The tide, which is slight at Montevideo, is greater at the bottom of the harbour on the Barra del Indio, sometimes rising nearly forty inches there. From there it advances with difficulty northward, over the Ortiz Bank, along the Uruguayan shore, whereas it passes freely into the deeper zone on the Argentine side.134 At Buenos Aires it still has a depth of thirty inches. From there it advances northward by the Martin Garcia channels beyond the Playa Honda. The channel of the Pozos del Barca Grande, which crosses the Playa Honda bank from north to south, parallel to the edge of the delta, is oriented in conformity with the tidal currents and maintained by them. It is not attached to the river, and it is separated from the mouths of the Paraná de las Palmas or the Paraná Mini by shallows which are navigable only to small boats. The Rias of the Uruguay, where the tide raises the water twelve inches, forms a sort of reservoir which, at the ebb, feeds a strong current round Martin Garcia and sweeps the channels there.

The work done for the improvement of the estuary includes the deepening to thirty feet of the Barra del Indio and the dredging of a straight channel from that point to Buenos Aires. Steamers of large tonnage going up the Paraná leave this channel twenty-six miles east of Buenos Aires, and turn north in order to pass east of Martin Garcia, and enter the river by the Paraná Guazu or the Paraná Bravo. Since 1901 the Argentine Government has considered a plan of opening a direct route from Buenos Aires to the Paraná de las Palmas, either by cutting an artificial canal at the foot of the cliffs, across the Tigre archipelago, or by using the channel of the Pozos del Barca Grande and cutting the narrow bar which closes the Paraná de las Palmas below. If this were done, the ports of the Paraná de las Palmas would have direct access to the sea. Moreover, the new route from the Paraná to the Atlantic would be entirely within Argentine territory, out of range of the Uruguayan shore, and Buenos Aires would become a necessary port of call both on departure and return.

Above the estuary, the work for the improvement of the Paraná began in 1904 and 1905. Since 1910 the material dredged from the bed of the river has risen to 3,500,000 cubic metres a year on the average. The experience gained in the course of this work has enabled the Argentine hydrographic service to adjust its methods to the incomparable force of the river. It is impossible to maintain a general rectification of the bed and the banks, as is possible with European rivers. The only thing to do is to submit quietly to the plan which the river sketches for itself, and be content to deepen the difficult passages on the line of the main arm. Suction dredges, which work easily in the sand, attack each ridge or paso from below, making a channel into which the waters flow, so that it tends to enlarge itself up stream. The dredges are shifted from bank to bank according as the soundings tell of the formation of fresh obstacles to navigation. They were at first concentrated below Rosario, where the Argentine Government had to carry out certain engagements contracted with the Port Company; then they were scattered as far up as Santa Fé. The actual equipment suffices to carry out the programme that had been drawn up—to maintain a depth of twenty-one feet as far as Rosario and of nineteen feet as far as Santa Fé.

As regards the section above Santa Fé, the engineer Repossini advises that, instead of adopting a programme of expensive dredging with uncertain results, they should first think of adjusting navigation to the natural conditions, and they are such as would be considered very favourable in Europe. The hydrographic service would, however, still have two functions: in the first place, the topographical study of the river and the constant placing of buoys, and, in the second place, the observation of its behaviour and anticipation of variations of level. The utility of the work of foreseeing floods, which has been carried on since 1907, has been abundantly proved. It published a daily bulletin of forecasts, based upon observation of the pluviometric scales of the upper river, which is equally valuable to the navigators and to breeders in the floodable area. It enables the breeders to get their cattle into safety before the floods come. On the other hand, the ship can, thanks to the bulletin, foretell what depth of water it will find at critical passages, and calculate exactly the load it can carry, and so complete its cargo lower down. The service of forecast of floods has morally improved navigation on the Paraná by suppressing every possible pretext for wilful stranding, which had become a current form of speculation.

Nothing is more varied than the fleet which now serves the Paraná. It includes tramps, and long, slim European ships, which load up with cereals and meat; large river boats, luxurious and light; barges and tugs, lighters and schooners, which have compensation for their slowness in their cheapness.

As regards navigation, the river is now divided into three sections. Maritime navigation ascends as far as Santa Fé. At Rosario and Santa Fé it goes right to the heart of the zone of cereals and to the fringe of the forest area. The upper section, between Rosario and Santa Fé, is less safe than the lower section, and this is reflected in the cost of freightage from Santa Fé.

The ports of the lower Paraná, between Santa Fé and Buenos Aires, may be classed in three categories. The ports of the first group are built on low land that is liable to be flooded. Every year the floods threaten their traffic. That is the character of Colastiné, east of Santa Fé, which specializes in shipping quebracho timber, or Ibicuy, on the Paraná Pavon, in the south of the province of Entre Rios, which, however, is protected by excellent works. The small ports of the barranca of the southern bank, on the main river and on the Paraná de las Palmas, form a second group. They ship meat (Campana and Zarate) and cereals (San Nicolas and Villa Constitución), and they are admirably adapted for this by their natural situation. Steamers come right up to the cliff without any need of special works on the shore. The sacks of wheat are let into the ships down sloping gangways from stores excavated in the cliff or from wagons. None of these ports are equipped for receiving imports. The third group comprises ports with complete apparatus for both export and import. The chief of these is Rosario. It was the increase of imports between 1850 and 1860 that stimulated its early progress. To-day the tonnage of the goods unloaded at Rosario is nearly one-half the tonnage of the cereals shipped there. Yet, in spite of appearances, it is the imports that account mainly for the busy life of its quays. The port company does the unloading itself, as well as the handling and storing of the goods imported, but it is content to receive dues on all exports within the area for which it has a monopoly. Only a small part of the cereals exported uses its elevators. A deep-water port, equipped like that at Rosario for import and export, has just been constructed at Santa Fé. Already it competes with Colastiné for the export of quebracho. Its import trade is still small, as such trade requires large capital and a whole network of relations with the adjoining country, and that is not the work of a day.

The second section of the river stretches from Santa Fé to Corrientes, and is continued up the Paraguay. The transport of quebracho timber and tannic acid is the chief item of its trade. The maximum draught of the vessels it admits at normal low water is six feet. Some of the ports on the left bank (Esquina, Goya) and all the ports on the right bank (Reconquista, Barranqueras, etc.) are at some distance from the main bed, or lateral arms. The Chaco works have generally a flotilla of steamers and barges. It is the exporters of timber and extract of quebracho to Europe who most strongly demand the deepening of the bed of the Paraná above Santa Fé. Sailing ships share with the river steamers the transport of the products of the Paraguay and of Corrientes (hides, tobacco and maté). The transport of oranges alone from San Antonio, Villeta, Pilar and Humaïta represents an item of tens of thousands of tons.

The third section of the river stretches from Corrientes to Posadas, and beyond. Sailing ships have disappeared from this section, as they cannot make the Apipé rapids. Steamers of four and a-half feet draught and 150 tons are now used on it, but they cannot proceed at low water. They provide a direct service between Buenos Aires and Posadas, though the service is not very economical, because it does not permit them to use to the full the transport-capacity of the river below Corrientes. Most of the goods for Posadas are, therefore, trans-shipped at Ituzaingo, below the rapids, or at Corrientes. The steamboat companies which serve Posadas are obliged, in order to secure the economical transport of goods shipped on the upper Paraná, to maintain lines which go up the Paraguay as far as Asunción, and take on at Corrientes the goods that come from Posadas. Higher up, the falls of the Guayra and the Yguassu set an impassable limit to the enterprise of Argentine vessels. Boats on the stretch above Yguassu on the Paraná feed the railways of the Brazilian tableland. The traffic of the upper Paraná consists chiefly of maté from Misiones and cedar-planks from the Posadas saw-mills. Rafts of timber are stopped at Posadas and rarely follow the river further.

The Argentine statistics of navigation are obscure. They confuse under one heading the river-traffic between Posadas and Brazilian territory, or between Corrientes and the Paraguay, and the exports of the Pampean region to Europe. It is difficult to get from them an idea of the real traffic, or to distinguish the tonnage loaded or unloaded at each port from that which merely touches its quays in ships going up or coming down the river. They credit a score of ports with a total tonnage of (entries and clearances together) more than 500,000 tons.

At all events, they do enable us to distinguish between ports exclusively devoted to river traffic and those with direct relations to oversea ports. Nearly all the boats destined for the Paraná touch at Buenos Aires, which remains the chief importing centre, on the way up, and unload there. They then go empty to Rosario, San Nicolas, or Santa Fé to take on a full cargo of cereals or timber, and set out down the Paraná for Europe without calling at Buenos Aires. Clearances for interior navigation at the port of Buenos Aires are far more numerous than entries. From 1912 to 1914 Buenos Aires received on the average, coming from interior ports, 1,750,000 tons, of which 1,635,000 were cargo. It cleared for the same ports ships totalling 3,275,000 tons, of which 1,580,000 were in ballast. The latter figure fairly represents the tonnage of sea-going ships sent up river empty after discharging on the quays of Buenos Aires. At Rosario, San Nicolas and San Pedro, on the other hand, the tonnage of clearances for Argentine ports is much less than the tonnage of entries.135 The total movement of goods at the port of Rosario is 410,000 tons entries and 375,000 tons clearances for interior navigation, and 1,100,000 tons entries and 1,824,000 tons clearances for navigation abroad.

According to Repossini's calculations the tonnage of exports on the lower Paraná south of Santa Fé rose in 1910 to 4,000,000 or 4,500,000. The imports, almost entirely confined to Rosario, were about a fourth of this figure. For the middle and upper Paraná, Repossini estimated the volume of the traffic at 800,000 tons, of which quebracho was two-fifths.

The navigation of the Paraná is one of the chief sources of the prosperity of Buenos Aires. Even if the development of the import trade at Rosario or Santa Fé is partly at the expense of the capital, and the boats laden with cereals do not stop at its quays, still the coasting traffic on the river is in great part meant for Buenos Aires. In returning, rather than go empty, the boats take cargoes of European products bought from the Buenos Aires importers. By means of the Paraná the import-trade sphere of influence of Buenos Aires reaches beyond the frontiers of Argentina, as far as Paraguay and part of Brazil. Buenos Aires is, moreover, the main centre for equipping the steamboats of the river. Its capital dominates the Paraná. Lastly, the Paraná supplies it with an export freight which must not be overlooked. It is at Buenos Aires that the hides, tobacco and timber and extracts of quebracho for oversea markets, shipped on schooners in the upper reaches of the river which are impassable for steamers, are trans-shipped for abroad.

CHAPTER IX
THE POPULATION

A large-scale chart of the mean density of the population for each province—like those which were published in the latest Argentine Census-reports—has no geographical value for the west and north-west, where oases of slight extent are separated by vast desolate stretches, deserted because of the lack of water. In the Pampean region, on the other hand, the population is distributed in a very regular manner, and the mean densities calculated fairly represent the facts.

To the several types of exploitation, of which we have studied the distribution on the Pampa, there correspond unequal densities of population. Cattle-breeding, for instance, requires only a thin population. The early pastoral colonization of the plain on the west of the Salado was carried out, between 1880 and 1890, with a very small number of workers. A large ranch of 400 square kilometres on the northern edge of the Pampa (the Tostado ranch) only employs about a hundred men, or one for four square kilometres. The density increases appreciably for sheep-breeding on the pastos tiernos of Buenos Aires province, where a ranch of a hundred square kilometres, devoted to producing wool, with fifty or sixty shepherds, sustains at least 200 persons, or two to the square kilometre.136 The density is not appreciably greater in the area of wheat-growing on a large scale, where the extent cultivated by one family reaches, including fallow, 200 hectares. But it may, even apart from the urban population, be more than ten to the square kilometre in the maize belt.

The growth of the population of Argentina can be followed closely from the middle of the eighteenth century. A Census taken in 1774 gives the Buenos Aires district within the first line of forts 6,000 inhabitants. At the end of the eighteenth century (Census of 1797, quoted by D'Azara) the population of the province of Buenos Aires, without the town, was a little over 30,000 souls, the zone occupied having been extended in the meantime, at least in part, as far as the Salado. Woodbine Parish estimates the population at 80,000 in 1824, at the time when the expansion southward, beyond the Salado, as far as the Sierra de Tandil, began. It doubled between 1824 and 1855. The northern departments then counted 45,000 inhabitants, the western 58,000 and the southern 63,000. The density was still a little greater in the north, along the road to Peru, but the advance of sheep-rearing in the south was beginning to change the centre of gravity of colonization. The first regular Census of the Argentine Republic in 1869 showed a still more rapid advance. The population of the Buenos Aires province had grown to 315,000 inhabitants. The increase was greatest in the west, where tillage began to extend round Chivilcoy, beyond the pastoral area, and in the south, where sheep-farms multiplied. The population of the southern departments more than doubled in fourteen years (137,000 inhabitants to 70,000 square kilometres in occupation, or two to the square kilometre).

However, the Pampean region—Buenos Aires (including the capital), Santa Fé, and the southern part of Córdoba—still had a smaller population than that of the northern and north-western provinces: 626,000 as compared with 813,000. The Mesopotamian provinces had then 263,000 inhabitants.

The proportion was reversed twenty-five years later at the 1895 Census. The population of the Pampas had increased threefold, and was more than a half of the entire population of the country. That of the western and north-western provinces was about a third of the whole, and had only increased by fifty per cent.

If one considers in detail the distribution of the population of the Pampean plain in 1895, one sees that beyond the suburbs of Buenos Aires the area of greatest density—five to eight per square kilometre—was in the north-west, between San Andres de Giles and Pergamino, a district of advanced methods, where the cultivation of maize was beginning to occupy a good part of the land. The population was confined to the west of the preceding zone, in the agricultural area of Junin, Chacabuco and Chivilcoy. This area, where maize and wheat were next each other, already embraced Viente Cinco de Mayo (five to the square kilometre) on the west and Nueve de Julio (2.5). In the south of Buenos Aires, the departments of the left bank of the Salado, which were entirely given up to breeding, but long colonized, had a density of three to five per square kilometre. The region lying between the lower Salado and the Sierra de Tandil, a sheep-breeding area, then giving good returns but of recent colonization, had not more than three. The density falls rapidly as one goes westward. It sinks to less than one in the north-west and west of the Buenos Aires province, in the area where the cattle-breeders from the east had settled. At Santa Fé, the region of the colonies, at the level both of Rosario and Santa Fé, had five inhabitants per square kilometre. But beyond the Córdoba frontier the density falls to two in the San Justo department, and still less further south, at Marcos Juarez, Union and General Lopez.

In 1914 the density was more than fifteen in the whole of the maize area in the Buenos Aires and Santa Fé provinces, and it approached this figure in the departments of the old agricultural colonies on the middle Salado. In the region of the lucerne farms it was three to five, except in the south-east (departments of Veinte Cinco de Mayo, Nueve de Julio and Bolivia), where it rose, thanks to the co-existence of ranches and of wheat and maize. It sank to between two and three in the wheat area in the south and south-east of Buenos Aires. At Santa Fé the district of the colonies had seven to the square kilometre.

The growth of the population is partly explained by immigration from Europe. Foreigners were, in 1914, 30 per cent. of the total population.137 The proportion of foreigners to the total population is one of the indications by which we can best follow the advance of colonization. As soon as it relaxes in any region, the number of immigrants diminishes. (The children born of foreign colonists in Argentina are considered indigenous in Argentine statistics.) In 1869 the proportion of foreigners rose to 417 per 1,000 in the province of Buenos Aires (without the capital). This was the great period of pastoral colonization and the development of sheep-breeding. It was then only 156 per 1,000 at Santa Fé. In 1895 the proportion of foreigners sank to 309 per 1,000 at Buenos Aires, but rose to 419 at Santa Fé, where the date almost marks the end of the great period of agricultural colonization. In 1914 the proportion of foreigners at Buenos Aires rose to 340 per 1,000 (development of the maize region and the southern wheat area). It sank at Santa Fé (350 per 1,000), in spite of considerable immigration in the southern maize-growing departments. At the same time there was a great influx of foreign population in the province of Córdoba (200 per 1,000) and in the area of the Central Pampa (360 per 1,000).138

The recent enumerations also enable us to follow the displacements of the indigenous population on Argentine territory and the part this has had in colonization. Outside the Pampean region the parts of the country which have proved centres of attraction for the Argentine population are the sugar provinces of Tucumán and Jujuy and the province of Mendoza. In 1895 Tucumán had 40,000 inhabitants who had been born in other provinces, Jujuy 15,000 and Mendoza 19,000. The attraction of Tucumán was mainly felt in the adjoining province of Santiago (12,000 immigrants) and Catamarca (12,000). At Mendoza the immigrants came mainly from San Juan (7,000) and San Luis (3,000). The attraction of the timber region is more difficult to estimate, because most of the obrajes are in the province of Santiago, which found the workers itself, and the enumerations have not taken into account displacements within each province. Nevertheless, immigration into the land of the quebracho Chaqueño, along the Paraná, can be recognised from 1895 onward. It was maintained by the Corrientes province. Santa Fé has 10,000 immigrants from Corrientes, of whom 6,500 are in the forestry departments of Reconquista and Vera. The Chaco region maintains 2,000 Corrientes wood-cutters and several hundred from Santiago and Salta. Corrientes has also sent 5,000 emigrants to Misiones.

In the Pampean region the population of Buenos Aires in 1895 included very few who came from other provinces. The population of Santa Fé was more mixed. The attraction of the agricultural colonies had brought 65,000 Argentine immigrants. They came mainly from the left bank of the Paraná and Córdoba. The immigrants from Córdoba are localized along the railway from Rosario to Córdoba, in the Belgrano and Iriondo departments and the town of Rosario. The migration of the Santa Fé colonists to the new lands in the west had scarcely begun at that time. They were still only 3,000 in the Buenos Aires province, and 5,000 at Córdoba; most of them were in departments adjacent to the old colony area. The colonization of Córdoba began simultaneously in the east, toward Santa Fé, and in the south-west, in the Rio Cuarto department, to which the breeders from San Luis went. Similarly, the Argentine population of the Central Pampa includes elements from the east as well as European colonists and elements from the north-west (10,000 immigrants from the Buenos Aires province, 3,000 from San Luis).

The 1914 Census has less complete details in regard to interior immigration than its predecessor. The migrations had not ceased. The attraction of Tucumán and Mendoza had, in fact, decreased. The province of Tucumán had 55,000 Argentine immigrants, the province of Jujuy 15,000, the province of Mendoza 34,000. The provinces of Mendoza and Corrientes remained nuclei of considerable immigration (38,000 and 63,000 immigrants). At Santa Fé the number of emigrants who left the province to settle at Córdoba and in the remainder of the Pampean region rose from 14,000 to 87,000. The Patagonian territory also had a large excess of immigrants from other provinces.

Periodic migrations with no definitive change of residence are not given in the official statistics. The importance of these migrations in northern Argentina has been noted in the chapters we devoted to Tucumán and the forestry industry. They occur also in the Pampean region, where they are due chiefly to he the need of labour for the harvest and the threshing of wheat and flax, and for reaping the maize. Miatello has given us a detailed analysis of the phenomenon for the province of Santa Fé in 1904. The period when the wheat and flax growers need help is from November to February. It begins in March for the maize farmers, and lasts so much longer when the harvest is good. The temporary immigrants come partly from Europe. Not only is the stream of immigration to Argentina fuller during the months which precede the harvests, while the stream of re-emigration to Europe is greatest in the autumn, but it is not a rare thing for Italians to go every year to Argentina merely to stay there during the harvest, when wages are high. This seasonal immigration from Italy is of long standing; it is mentioned by Daireaux in 1889. These foreigners, however, are only part of the adventurous crowd enlisted for the harvests on the Pampean plain. Seasonal migration is everywhere a national practice. The labour employed in reaping the maize includes elements borrowed from the towns near the maize belt. But all the provinces round the Pampean region send their contingent of temporary immigrants. Some even come from the valley of the Rio Negro at Bahía Blanca, from San Luis, and even from Mendoza to the Central Pampa and the Córdoba province.

The oldest, and still the largest, stream is that which comes from the Santiago province. D'Orbigny notices in 1827 the temporary streaming of Santiagueños to the coast. In that year slow progress was made with the wheat-harvest of Buenos Aires because of the shortage of labour. "The forced levies for the army prevented the Santiagueños from going to hire themselves, as was their custom, in fear lest they should be compelled to serve."139

Temporary emigration began, no doubt, with the journeys which brought the northerners to Buenos Aires as drivers of convoys of wagons. Santiagueños were numerous amongst these troperos. Lorenzo Fazio collected reminiscences of these journeys in the land of the bañados.140 They go back to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the period before the diversion of the Rio Dulce and the ruin of Salavina and Atamisqui. "My father," said one of his informants, "drove wagons of wheat to Córdoba, and sometimes to Buenos Aires, where he sold them and bought goods-stuffs in exchange. He bought the wheat at Loreto, Atamisqui or Salavina. It was a year before he got back, because it was necessary to wait for the rain and the growth of the vegetation, otherwise his animals would have died of thirst or hunger on the road." The journeys of the troperos meant a long spell of idleness in the Pampean region, precisely at the harvest season. Naturally, they would lend a hand in it.

The temporary emigration of the Santiagueños continued throughout the nineteenth century. It was maintained even during the disturbances under the government of Rosas, which almost entirely put an end to commercial relations between Buenos Aires and the northern provinces. When Galvez passed through the villages on the Rio Dulce he noticed that there were few men in them. They had scattered over the roads or were, as he says, andariegos. Only the women remained. The province of Buenos Aires received the Santiagueños in crowds, offering their services. Chivilcoy and the whole region of the chacras of maize and wheat received their caravans for the harvest, and some were kept for the sowing. Even the ranchers took advantage of this reinforcement, and hired the men for marking. In the autumn they went back with their tropillas, much dreaded by the breeders whose land they crossed, stealing any horses that were not well guarded.

The province of Santa Fé, especially in the agricultural departments of the north-west, is now the chief theatre in the Pampean region for the immigration of the Santiagueños. It does not always come by rail, but has to some extent preserved its primitive and picturesque features. The immigrants arrive in troops on mules and horses, and scatter in November over the colonies.

The population of Argentina has also felt the attraction of the urban centres. The growth of the towns is due to both foreign and national immigration. The development of urban life, which is one of the characteristic features of modern Argentina, is a recent phenomenon. There was no indication of its coming in the eighteenth century. D'Azara was, on the contrary, struck by the absence of communal life (pueblos unidos). The scattering of the population was a result of the predominance of breeding. "If these people found profit in agriculture, one would see them gather together in villages, instead of the whole population being dispersed in ranches."141 It is this scattering of the population rather than an absolute numerical inferiority—the solitude, "the desert, the universal horizon that forced itself into the very entrails of the land"142—that moulded the fiery soul of the gaucho.