The population of Mendoza is small and the number of its live stock very little larger: although in point of superficial area Mendoza ranks third (after Buenos Aires and Córdoba) among the Argentine Provinces. It is only fair, however, to add that much of the Western Area of Mendoza is very mountainous, since it includes a long stretch of the Eastern side of the Andes.
This Province is bounded on the North by that of San Juan, on the West by Chile, on the South by the National Territories of Neuquen and the Pampa Central, and on the East by the Province of San Luis.
Its department of San Rafael is a very large one, larger indeed than the whole of the rest of the Province put together; in it is found the greatest agricultural activity, including the great alfalfa fields. The Mendoza cattle are of all kinds and varieties, little attention having been yet, generally, given to the science of cross-breeding. It, however, exports numbers of cattle to Chile, either by way of mountain passes or the Transandine Railway; but a great many of these have been bred in neighbouring Provinces and sent to Mendoza for a fattening period before exportation.
Irrigation is a great feature of Mendoza, which was the first Province to receive any notable attention in this regard. Now, if we except, perhaps, the great irrigation works and schemes already well advanced in the National Territories of Neuquen and the Rio Negro, Mendoza has, with San Juan, the largest and most comprehensive systems (both existing and in advanced stages of consideration) in the whole Republic.
The fall of the mountain rivers and the eastward drop of the whole surface of the Province makes irrigation here a comparatively easy task, while the natural fertility of the soil quickly and richly repays the initial cost and upkeep of reservoirs and canals. One menace there is which hangs ever over Mendoza, that of volcanic eruptions. The whole of its Capital was completely destroyed as recently as 1861. The city has, however, been rebuilt on its former site, a sort of shelf of land situated on the spring of the great Andine range. Gradually the loosely built low adobe houses have been and are still being replaced in the New Town by several-storied buildings of solid masonry; courage growing as the date of the last great earthquake grows more remote. Still slight shocks are of frequent occurrence in the Capital and elsewhere in this Province.
The City of Mendoza is rich in public gardens and avenues filled with luxuriantly umbrageous vegetation and has, of course (what self-respecting Argentine town has them not?), electric light and trams; but its just pride is the great West Park, situate on another level shelf of land projecting from the foot of the Cordillera on a higher level than that on which the City is built.
This Park has a sheet of water of almost a mile in length by some seventy-five yards broad, in which are ornamental islets and on which regattas are held. For these festal occasions there is a huge stone grand stand at one end of the water. The Park has many magnificent electric-lighted avenues lined with trees of majestic proportions, and all over it are gardens of subtropical shrubs and plants. Within its great bronze gates are also a zoological and a, specifically, botanical garden.
A BIT OF THE TRANSANDINE RAILWAY, ARGENTINA
