Viewing page 6 of 57

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-4-
north of Capital. This trip was made through the courtesy of the Director of the newly constructed railroad from La Paz to Pongo. The Director furnished passes for myself and Mr. Otto Buchtien, who accompanied me as guide an interpreter, and furnished mules for a week's journey through North and South Yungas, a great coca-growing region. Mr. Buchtien is a German botanist long resident in Bolivia. On January 3 I arrived at Cochabamba where I spent several days in a fertile semitropical agricultural valley.
The last excursion in Bolivia was to the southern border over the transcontinental railroad to Bueno Aires. This has not been completed but is under construction from Atocha to Villazon. Through the kindness of Mr. Trueheart, manager of the Ulen Contracting Corporation that is constructing the road I was furnished with passes on construction trains and with a man and mules for overland travel between railheads. The round trip took about ten days. Coming back to Uyuni I went to Antofagasta, Chile, where I embarked on a Grace Line Steamer for Panama January 25th. I arrived in New York February 17th.
Topography and Climate.
The three countries lie mostly in the Andes, or Cordillera as the great mountain system is called there. Along the Pacific coast is a plain varying in width from a few miles to as much as 100 miles. East of this is the mountain system consisting for the most part of two main chains with high valleys or plateaus between. On the east of the mountain system the slopes and foothills merge gradually into the Amazon Valley in the north and into the Paraguay Valley in the south.