Chuquicamata Twenty Years Later

American Geographical Society

Chuquicamata Twenty Years LaterAuthor(s): William E. RudolphSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 1951), pp. 88-113Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/211310 .

Accessed: 09/05/2014 17:33

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toGeographical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.180 on Fri, 9 May 2014 17:33:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ags

http://www.jstor.org/stable/211310?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER

WILLIAM E. RUDOLPH

TWENTY years is a short span in the life of a community, but the last two decades have brought many changes to the north Chilean mining center of Chuquicamata and its surroundings, as I found upon my

return in I948. The mlining company had greatly increased its output of refined copper, overcome grave technical problems, weathered a severe depression, and furnished important aid to the United States during the Second World War. More striking still was the advancement in living conditions in this conmmunity situated at 9200 feet in a most arid desert.

Today Chuquicamata counts some 25,000 people, nearly half as many again as in I928. A few of the primitive old houses remain, but all about them are new, modern buildings. The increase in population has created a housing shortage, and this is being met by the erection of prefabricated concrete houses of four to six roonms, earthquake-proof, with full kitchen and sanitary conveniences. Disposal of garbage is ingenious: it is collected, dumped at the foot of the mine-tailings pile, and covered as the pile grows. As the streets are neater and cleaner, so are the people. No longer do flour sacks do duty as apparel; the workmen and their families are fully as well clothed as their counterparts in an industrial town in the United States. They enjoy sports baseball, basketball, football motion pictures, and other forms of recreation. Gardening, too, has been encouraged and adds greatly to the anmenities of life. More than 30 varieties of flowers are grown in the little gardens; despite winter winds and freezing ground temperatures, there are blooms throughout the year, and many a pepper tree as well. On the other hand, some picturesque features of the old days have disappeared. The horses of the twenties are gone, and the hitching posts, and the ramadas in whose shade staff members sheltered their mounts; the spacious corral at the east end of the plant has been turned to other uses. Mule pack trains no longer cross the pampa below the town. The burro and the llama, common on the Bolivian altiplano, are rarities; all kinds of cars, buses, and trucks have

replaced them. I have always found the Chilean a good workman, especially if he has

an incentive. Now a desire for education is evident. The grammar schools

teach useful arts and sciences as well as the three R's, and there are plans for

> MR. RUDOLPH, Corresponding Member of the American Geographical Society and a frequent contributor to the Geographical Review, is chief engineer at the Chuquicamata property.



CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER 89

establishing a trade school. Many of the girls fill clerical positions; no longer is there an excess of domestic help. A growing number of Chilean families are sending their sons and daughters to advanced schools in Antofagasta and central Chile. Recently a boy from Chuquicamata won an open scholarship established by the company for study at a North American university. Workmen enroll in correspondence courses and attend classes for higher positions in the plant. Indeed, little is left of the old way of life among the workers. Twenty years ago they were the rotos, the "ragged ones"; now they are self-respecting Chilean citizens.

An important factor in this progress is the improvement in health. Formerly lack of proper food and living conditions during youth, venereal diseases, and weak heart all contributed to inability to withstand the rigors of wind and cold at more than gooo feet. Infant mortality was high, as in other parts of Chile. Now the reverse is the case. The worker, especially the younger man, takes little time off for illness. The older man, too, has profited by periodical examinations and hospital care. The hospital system has expanded radically since the twenties and has three or four times as many doctors and nurses. There is also a dental clinic. The village of crim- inals and camp followers that formerly flourished on the pampa below the east end of the plant has happily been eliminated buried beneath tailings when the company acquired property rights there (Fig. 4).

CHANGES IN THE PLANT

Chuquicamata is the site of the largest proved copper-ore body in the world. As a man-made feature of the landscape the workings are now more impressive than ever. Fully 50,000 tons of ore each day is loaded by electrical- ly operated shovels into standard ore cars hauled by electric locomotives, to be crushed, leached, extracted from solution, and refined into copper bars.' The pit from which the ore is taken measures now two miles in length by 3000 feet in width at the top; the maximum depth below the uppermost workings is goo feet (Fig. 3). Nearly half as much waste rock must be removed to disposal dumps in order to reach the ore pockets, a vastly greater quantity than during the mid-twenties. Moreover, where the tramming was formerly downhill, now the greater part of the ore must be hauled uphill to the crushers.

During the twenties problems of ore treatment were comparatively

' The process is described by T. A. Campbell: A Brief Description of the Reduction Plant of the Chile Exploration Company at Chuquicamata, Chile, S. A., Tranis. Amer. Inst. of Mining aid .Metallurgical Eniginieers, Vol. io6, 1933, pp. 559-608.



cd

-t

U \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~k-

'>8 7 4-'' " '

\\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ '

cz~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~c CA~

i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ to~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~c Q '.-

}o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ U~~~~~~~~~~~~~c

c4

01 0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'~~~~P4



CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER 9I

simple. Only the upper, or oxidized, part of the ore body was being mined. But beneath the oxide ores lies a zone of oxides and sulphides, the mixed ores, and beneath that the unaltered sulphides, the great subbase of the ore body, constituting the larger part of the explored, and all of the unexplored, reserves. The oxide ores are soluble in dilute sulphuric acid solution, and the original plant at Chuquicamata was built for such process; the copper was removed from the purified solution by electrolytic separation. When the mixed ores began to appear in appreciable amounts in the late thirties, it was not possible to recover all the copper by leaching, and the tailings residues were stored aside for future treatment. By the end of the war the sulphide ores also were appearing in quantity. As the "islands" of untreatable ore grew, so did the costly mining and tramming problems. In 1948 work was begun on the first unit of a new concentrating and smelting plant for processing both the sulphides and the leached residues from the mixed ores. This plant is scheduled for completion and operation by the beginning of I952.

Another innovation is the shaft and tunnel built comparatively recently into the deeper part of the ore body, foretoken of the underground mining that will replace surface mining in years to come.

WATER: INDUSTRIAL AND POTABLE

When the Chuquicamata plant was being built, during the First World War, pipe lines were installed to bring in potable and industrial water. The former, 3000 metric tons a day, came from the springs at the foot of the volcano Linzor, 58 miles to the east. The industrial water came from the somewhat brackish Rio San Pedro, 36 miles to the north; the initial amount, some 7500 metric tons a day, was doubled by a second pipe line in 1925.

This supply of industrial water is small in comparison with the amounts that will be required by the sulphide plant when it is completed. According- ly, in the early forties the company secured a concession from the Chilean government covering the flow of one of the eastern feeders of the Loa, the Rlo Salado Chico, known also as Arroyo Salado,2 which normally amounts to about 35,o0o metric tons a day. The Arroyo Salado water has a chlorine content of about 4200 parts per million, fully three times as much as in any other of the Loa tributaries and ten times as much as that of the Loa itself. The Chilean government had long desired to separate the salt-laden water of the Salado from the Loa where the main stream enters the Calama culti-

2 W. E. Rudolph: The Rlo Loa of Northern Chile, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 17, 1927, pp. 553-585 idem: Water Supply Problems of a Desert Region, Trans, Amer. Sc. of Civil Engneers, Vol. , 930, pp. 600-625.



- ~ ~~~~ - A.-

V~~~~

'n ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1

-~~~.. Q% -

.~~~ . . .W

-~ -

...~~ ~ ~ ~ ... ...,..;.............. _R -

FIG 4-Te avnigtlnsple, now soe35 fee hg.Ris of te camp flowers' vlae inSJ

foreground.

. ........ .. .. 0 ,-

FIG.~~ ~ ~ ~ 2-hgiaaa shwn eatr ato ecigadcuhn etos trg adi oerud

FIG 3;otes en of te prsn pit

FIG. 4-The advancing tailings pile, now some 350 feet high. Ruins of the camp followers' village in foreground.



'~~~~~ --

a . * R R N ! ll E _-S. . i. ..%

FIG. s-Water pipe line supported on masonry piers to prevent deterioration in areas where the water

table is high at times. FIG. 6--Truck loaded with bags of yareta, Caspana. FIG. 7- Tola bushes in the subcordillera east of Cliuquicamata.



94 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

vated area. The problem was met by the award of the Arroyo Salado water to the company under an agreement by which it was to be diverted above Calama. A dam and pipe line are now under construction for transporting the water to Chuquicamata. This is a fortunate happening-the removal of water detrimental to cultivation and good for no purpose but processing in such a plant as the new one under construction.

By I948, because of the expansion of sanitary facilities, there was also a prospective shortage of potable water, and every effort is being made to conserve it.

Meanwhile the pipe lines had been deteriorating, particularly the inside surface of the potable-water line, as a result of oxidation from the warm spring water carried. A deaeration plant, to remove oxygen from the water at the source, was the remedy. It was also found necessary to support the pipe lines upon piers of rocks (Fig. 5) where the ground became moist when rains in the cordiliera raised the water table. Here the outside of the pipe might become so rusted as to require replacement. During the twenties line riders were employed to patrol the pipe lines daily, to ensure uninterrupted service. It took a day for a line rider, traveling by horse or mule, to cover his section of about I8 miles of line, whereas his present-day successor in a motor truck has no difficulty in reaching any point on the lines within an hour or two, and the most troublesome repair is usually accomplished within eight hours.

THE FUEL PROBLEM

Time is exhausting the supply of yareta, once the principal fuel. In the latitude of Chuquicamata this mosslike woody plant is found only between I2,ooo and i5,ooo feet, only on northern and northeastern mountain slopes, and only where there are outcrops of rock. During the twenties it was believed that the yareta reseeded itself, though even then it was known that the plant required more than 50 years to grow to usable size. Government authorities established regulations under which a certain number of plants had to be left growing wherever yareta was cut. However, 30 years of obser- vation has disclosed that the growth in that time is negligible; it is now real- ized that the plant requires many hundreds of years to reach full size. The yareta is believed to be a relict form dating from a geological period when the cordilleran climate was much moister.

At the present rate of consumption, between 700o and gooo tons in a

year, there is barely enough yareta for some IO to I5 years, even taking into account the remote growths, to reach which would entail high truck and




railroad freighting costs. For a substitute, experiments have been made on the burning of light fuel oil in kitchen stoves. Here safety is the chief problem: the Chilean is both inexperienced in, and temperamentally unfitted for, the use of highly combustible liquid fuels. Also under consideration is a coal- wood combination. The coal would mean no great expense, but to obtain wood economically it might be necessary to plant eucalyptus or some other quick-growing tree at Calama. Another possibility is the cutting of tola bushes (Fig. 7), which cover both mountain slopes and intervening plateaus between I2,000 and I5,ooo feet, and briquetting them at gathering stations.

TRANSPORTATION

Probably the most important change the growth of Chuquicamata has brought to neighboring areas is that in transportation.

The older maps indicate well-defined travel routes, now abandoned- mule trails, sometimes cattle trails also. Many were probably in use long before the coming of the Spaniards; for example, the Inca road from Cobija on the coast to the plateau of Bolivia, over which it is believed fresh fish was carried by runners centuries ago. Travel by muleback averaged about five kilometers (three miles) an hour. The mule carts, for which wider trails had to be built in rough country, did little better.

The motor truck and car have replaced nearly all the animal transport. Roads now radiate in all directions from Chuquicamata, and the trip to San Pedro de Atacama, which once required two long days of mule travel and an overnight camp at the La Teca spring, is now made in two or three hours. Buses run from one part of the residential section to another, and to Calama, and even to remote villages on fiesta days. Long-distance buses, flotas, connect Chuquicamata with Tocopilla and Antofagasta, with daily service in both directions. The bus service to Antofagasta has absorbed much of the railroad passenger traffic between it and Calama, since the flota makes the journey more comfortably and in barely half the time.

Some of the motor equipment in use is modern, but there are also relics dating from the earlier days of motoring. Long after a car or truck has out- lived its usefulness in other countries, long after spare parts have ceased to be available from manufacturers, vehicles are here passed along from ownier to owner.

Only a few of the highways are paved. Most ofthem are made by scraping off the loose material of the pampa and adding a surfacing of compacted stones raked up from each side. In difficult terrain, such as crossings of dry quebradas or fills over soft sandy stretches, the road is seldom of more than




one-car width. In fact, one might say that only the roads traveled by the flotas are of two-car width. Grades are so steep in places that only sturdy trucks can climb them. Rivers are generally crossed at fords (Fig. 8), with attendant difficulties during the rainy season. In the drier months accumu- lations of heavy wind-blown sand make passage difficult at some places, and high water table sometimes results in soft mud at others. Drifting snow

_ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. .. ...w*s*.... ..

v

.. . .

FIG. 8-Fording the Rio Putana on the salt-covered pampa five hours by car east of Chuquicamata.

tends to lodge in certain places in the high mountain sections. Cars that make long pampa trips are wisely equipped with shovels, short planks, canvas or wire netting, and other aids for getting out of trouble.

The more important roads are being paved with asphalt mixtures; the greater part of the road between Antofagasta and Calama is now being hard- surfaced for two-car width. Other main highways, including those from Chuquicamata to Tocopilla and from Chuquicamata to Calama, have a pair of paved wheelway strips on one side and an unpaved section on the other. The downtraveling car must vacate the strips when passing an uptraveling car. However, traffic density is still fairly low.

The yareta-gathering industry and, to a smaller extent, sulphur mining have created fully I500 miles of roads on the mountainsides, reaching heights of i6,ooo feet and more. One road to a volcanic sulphur deposit was built to more than i8,ooo feet, but it saw little service because of falling rock. Proba- bly at no other place on the earth's surface have motor trucks been able to operate commercially at such high altitudes.

Chuquicamata is of course entirely dependent on the outside for its food,




and here the problem has been greatly simplified by motor transportation. More and better fruits and vegetables from near-by green spots are brought in, and with far less spoilage than in earlier days. The tendency is toward increasing the number of sources and amounts of produce, from Calama for instance. From Calama too comes a daily delivery of milk and cream to a pasteurizing plant at Chuquicamata. Trucks bring fresh fish and other sea

FIG. 9-Modern port works at Antofagasta.

food from the coast to the mine. However, perhaps the most interesting change in the food supply is due not to the road but to the railroad. Chuqui- camata's beef formerly arrived on the hoof across the cordillera. The cattle trade from northwestern Argentina to the mines and nitrate fields of northern Chile has been described in detail by Isaiah Bowman in "Desert Trails of Atacama." The new transcontinental railroad between Salta and Antofagasta has changed that,3 though it must be noted that the service is liable to inter- ruption-heavy snows in the cordillera suspended operation for prolonged periods during the winters of I949 and I95o.

RELATIONS WITH ANTOFAGASTA AND TOCOPILLA

Both Antofagasta and Tocopilla have close relations with Chuquicamata. Antofagasta ships the copper and transfers large amounts of cargo from coastwise vessels to the English-operated Antofagasta-to-Bolivia railroad for transport to the mine (Fig. 9). During the twenties this freighting service formed only a modest part of the shipping business of the port, for the nitrate

3 See W. E. Rudolph: Antofagasta to Salta Railroad, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 33, I943, pp. 665-666.




plants of northern Chile were at the height of their prosperity. Bolivia also was shipping tin and silver concentrates in quantity. But today most of the nitrate plants have shut down, and Bolivia's output of metals has been seriously affected by internal disturbances and depletion of ore bodies. Shipments of borax from Cebollar and of metals from smaller mines at Caracoles and elsewhere are at a low ebb. Fortunately for Antofagasta, Chuquicamata has been increasing its production.

Antofagasta too has grown up. Its coches, horse-drawn cabs, have been replaced by automobiles and buses, and it has docks for berthing ocean liners. It has started to build a modern hotel. One of the first changes I noticed at the port was the absence of the huge advertising letters in white salts-on the precipitous brown cliffs. In I948 there remained only the 6o-foot-high white anchor, once the navigator's landmark for guiding his vessel into the harbor.4

But Antofagasta suffers from a shortage of water. Two decades ago the railroad's pipe lines, fed by the Rio Siloli at the Bolivian frontier, 250 miles to the northeast, and by springs at the foot of the peaks Polapi and Palpana, brought a plentiful supply. The population, now larger and on a higher standard of living, would like to purchase more water, but the pipe lines are flowing to capacity. A project for constructing another line from the cordillera has been under discussion for three years or more.

So far as the nitrate business is concerned, Antofagasta's loss has been Tocopilla's gain. In the early twenties Tocopilla was the shipping port of an English railroad that operated a relatively not too important group of nitrate properties; it had some small copper mines near by, the ores from which were concentrated locally and shipped; it also had the power plant that supplied electricity to the Chuquicamata copper property, ioo miles in- land, over a single transmission line. Now Tocopilla is the port for a modern electrified railroad operated by a partnership of North American and Chilean government interests; it has a larger power plant and three high-tension lines to Chuquicamata installed by the copper company, which has also provided modern dwellings for the workmen, south of the city. Only its small mining business has suffered.

Shortly before the crash in the nitrate market in the late twenties, North American capital had built a new plant at Maria Elena, midway between Chuquicamata and Tocopilla, which used a more advantageous process

4 It is carefully restored by special municipal appropriation every few years as the marks are worn

by wind or low cloud. According to Isaac Arce R. (Narraciones hist6ricas de Antofagasta, Antofagasta,

1930, p. 295), the anchor was first painted on the hill in i868.




(Guggenheim) than the old Shanks process. Then came the collapse of high- priced nitrate, and most of the Chilean plants shut down. Marla Elena and a second plant, Pedro de Valdivia, constructed in the thirties and using the same process, are now the only plants functioning on a large scale. Both have their outlets via the 42-inch-gauge railroad from the nitrate pampa to Tocopilla, and there are usually eight or ten vessels in the harbor loading nitrate from lighters, both in bulk and in bags.

Meanwhile, as a result of all this prosperity, Tocopilla has paved its streets and built fireproof dwellings on a large scale at the north end of the town; and it has procured a plentiful water supply by a pipe line from the cordillera and thus is no longer dependent on distillation of sea water.

OUTLYING COMMUNITIES

Calama, the irrigated farming center io miles from Chuquicamata by road and 2000 feet lower, has also prospered with Chuquicamata's growth. Isaiah Bowman points out, in "Desert Trails of Atacama," that this former Bolivian community was not seriously affected by the change from mule to railroad transport half a century ago; neither has it been adversely affected by the advent of the motorcar. Today Calama is a thriving crossroads of motor-truck traffic. More or less improved roads radiate to Chuquicamata, Antofagasta, Tocopilla, San Pedro de Atacama, and Ollague, on the Bolivian frontier. The need for explosives at Chuquicamata is met by the Du Pont explosives plant, erected on the south side of the Rio Loa a short distance below the town.

Calama looks forward to even greater prosperity in the future. The pipe line for removing the brackish waters of the Arroyo Salado will be functioning in ig5i, and Calama's irrigation waters will then have a far smaller chemical content, though it will doubtless take several years to wash the accumulated salts from the soil. Moreover, fertilizer in the form of purified sludge from the new sewerage plant under construction at Chuquicamata will be available. Calama once furnished grazing for the herds of cattle driven across the cordillera, and though that business has been rendered obsolescent by the railroad, improved agriculture in the oasis suggests the possibility that it will furnish more and more of the vegetables and dairy products for the mining camp.

Yet another step upward for Calama is the building of an airport, ap- proaching the last stages of completion as this is written (October, ig5o). It is expected that national transport planes will make regular calls.

Of the centuries-old pueblos at oases in the Atacama Desert, some have




advanced because of the growth of Chuquicamata, others have declined. Chiu-Chiu, the nearest, I8 miles to the east, has definitely declined; its present population is probably smaller than at any other time since the Spanish conquest. As in most other rural communities close to the path of advancing industrialization, Chiu-Chiu's younger generation of sons has been leaving the farm to work in the copper plant. Ruins of irrigation ditches and fields turned brown tell the story.

Al '

i 'j ,"

FIG. iApproachng Toconao, which now is served by a good road.

On the other hand, San Pedro de Atacama, 70 miles southeast of Chuqui- camata, and Toconao, 90 miles to the southeast, are advancing. Twenty years ago San Pedro was the green spot for resting and pasturing cattle en route to Calama. In the twenties, when plans for building a trans-Andean railroad were being worked out, it was believed that both San Pedro and Toconao would be relegated to "out of the world" status. The contrary has happened. Trucking highways to Calama have provided an outlet for the oases' fruits and vegetables, as Chuquicamata's increasing population has created more and more demand for them. Chuquicamata residents motor out to the pueblos and leave some of their money there. The streets of San Pedro de Atacama are neater and cleaner, though narrow for large motor trucks; Toconao has an electric-light plant (water power) and is experiencing a building boom in which stone masonry in cement mortar is replacing adobe.

Less fortunate have been Peine and Socaire, old pueblos at the ancient seat of the Atacameno culture south of Toconao. Remoteness and the intervening heavily sanded areas have militated against construction of roads to connect them with the world outside. Abandoned and forgotten,



CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER IOI

these two pueblos reached a crisis late in I949, which became known only through an urgent call for help: many children were dying in an epidemic of whooping cough. The Gobernador at Calama and a staff. of doctors were soon at the spot and were shocked at the conditions they found-improper nutrition due to poor crops during several dry years, and lack of facilities to cope with a ravaging disease. Food and other necessities were contributed by people of Calama and Chuquicamata and hauled in by army transport. A

FIG. II-A street in Toconao. Note new masonry houses, sidewalk, and electric-light pole.

radio transmitting and receiving station was set up. Most important, the pueblos were organized for road building, and work is now in progress on the highway that will join them to Toconao. Santiago de Rio Grande, the indigenous pueblo within the canyon of the Grande some 30 miles north of San Pedro de Atacama, did not wait to share the fate of Peine and Socaire. Men, women, and children took the matter into their own hands in I949

and built a road to join with a branch of the highway between Calama and San Pedro de Atacama.

Aiquina, Caspana, and Toconce, once out-of-the-world pueblos,5 are so no longer. Both Aiquina and Caspana have a good road connecting at Chiu-Chiu with the main highway between Calama and Ollague, and their surplus pears, cactus fruits, and other green produce are welcome additions to the diet of Chuquicamata's residents. Toconce cannot be reached by highway because of the deep box canyons that are its approaches on all sides, but it has trail access to roads bordering the vega of Turi. Caspana now has a

5 Earl Hanson: Out-of-the-World Villages of Atacama, Geogr. Rev., Vol. i6, I926, pp. 365-377.



I02 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

school built of modern dressed timbers and corrugated iron, instead of the adobe, cactus wood, and straw of the past. Aiquina's church, once interesting for its crude architecture, now has a plastered front and patches of corrugated iron; it has also acquired a small diesel plant for lighting. The fiesta of the Virgin of Guadalupe, held here annually on September 8, is no longer the native festival that it was two decades ago; the motor road brings an alien element into the picture. The older communal Indians perform their obli- gation by delivering images of the Virgin from Toconce and Caspana to the churchyard at Aiquina, as the multitude looks on; then they fade away into the background. With the passing of the older culture of these three pueblos something has been lost forever, something that was unique and worthy of preservation.

THE SULPHUR-MINING INDUSTRY

Probably the most interesting activity in the region surrounding Chuqui- camata is the sulphur-mining industry, carried on almost entirely above I7,000 feet. I know of no other region where men work at such high altitudes.

Part of this activity is in the interest of Chuquicamata, where about 40 tons of low-grade sulphur is needed daily. Some sulphur goes to the explosives plant at Calama, and the remainder is shipped in refined form to central and southern Chile for use as insecticide by farmers. Twenty years ago the Chilean industry was struggling to compete with imported sulphur from Louisiana and Texas. A few small enterprises were in operation, using llamas and burros; the great expense was the bags, which wore out quickly as the animals carried the sulphur down the steep mountain slopes. Duties and regulations now block the entry of the imported product. Progressive miners have re- organized their operations and installed aerial tramways (Fig. I7), motor roads, and modern refining equipment. Living conditions for the workmen have been improved, and I was informed, when visiting a camp at I6,ooo feet (the men were working at I7,000 feet), that there was far less illness than in similar communities at lower altitudes. Indeed, I have noticed something exhilarating in the air of northern Chile at i6,ooo feet and more that seems to make up for lack of oxygen if one does not overexert.

Whereas Chuquicamata burns a large amount of yareta for domnestic purposes, the sulphur plants have been depending on this fuel for firing their boilers and other needs of their refining plants. Thus consumption has been steadily growing, while the length of truck haulage, and with it the cost, has been increasing even more.



-C ai~~~~~~~

- -< - 4. 4

~- ~ -

-L-

FIG. I 12.Aiquina on September 8, i950, day of the fiesta of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Cars and buses

brought some of the 3000 visitors, but many did penance by walking as much as 35 miles. FIG. I3-Procession leaving Aiquina. White figure in left middle ground is image of the Virgin. FIG. i4-Looking up the valley of the Ri'o Salado from Aiquina. The terraces are irrigated from springs

below the cliffs, the river water being too salty.



FIG. i5-Narrow canyon of the Arroyo Salado, from which water for the new sulphide plant is being piped.

FIG. I6-Sulphur miners at 17,000 feet, Cerro Ollague. A part of the aerial tramway can be seen at the upper left.

FIG. I7-A modem aerial tramway has replaced llama transport at the Cerro Ollague sulphur mine.



CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER I05

WILDLIFE OF THE DESERT

Twenty years have also brought changes in the wildlife of the region. The fleet vicunia, which was fairly safe from the hunter on foot or muleback, was forced to the steep mountain slopes when motors penetrated the cordillera. Indeed, the Zoological Gardens at Santiago, on the descriptive sign relating to the vicunfa, states that it is found in Bolivia but no longer in Chile. This is not strictly true; herds of vicuiias are still to be seen on the Chilean side of the frontier range, particularly when there are heavy snows in the high closed basins on the Bolivian side. In both Chile and Bolivia the vicuiia is protected by law, but there is no means of enforcement in the remote uninhabited areas, always above 13,500 feet, where it roams. There are also strict regulations in both countries, seemingly effective, governing traffic in vicufia skins. A few Indians of remote villages shoot these animals at times for food, but this is of no great consequence.

Among the wildlife of the region not nearly so common as 2o years ago are the guanaco, the avestruz (rhea), and the chinchilla. All three are protected by law, but it would seem that they too prefer the remoter places, as does the rabbitlike vizcacha. Chinchilla is being raised commercially, on farms at Conchi Viejo and at Calama.

The partridge also has been driven back to Bolivia; one now sees only a few in Chile, even in the Cerros de las Perdices. Aquatic fowl, such as ducks and flamingos, seem as plentiful as ever, despite the fact that duck shooting in its season is popular among Chuquicamata residents. Doves have not been seen in number for several years, perhaps because lack of rainfall in the subcordillera has reduced the supply of seeds that provide food, and with them the fox has disappeared, yet it comes to forage wherever men are camping or working for any short time, no matter how remote or desolate the spot.

The condor haunts the cordillera east of Chuquicamata. Whatever the reason, there seem to be more of these birds now than 20 years ago.

There are single-file trails of wild burros near unfrequented water holes, but one seldom sees the animals that use them. The chihi, locally called chilulu, which digs holes under the sand to gnaw the roots of desert plants, is as much of a nuisance to motorists as it was to mule riders 20 years ago. With large tires, one can often travel at will on the pampa without a road, but where these ratlike animals abound, wheels sink into hole after hole, causing no end of trouble to jack them out.

Twenty years ago fish were almost unknown in the region, except for minute specimens in spring-fed, fresh-water pools near the Salar de Ascotan



io6 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

and some sea fish (pejerrey) that ascended the brackish waters of the Loa to about 4000 feet. Now the Loa and its tributary the San Pedro have trout, planted from eggs furnished by the government fisheries in October, I949.

The fish seem to have abundant food-gnats, nymphs, small snails, and the like-and so far no natural enemies. During the first io months they reached lengths up to i i inches. Additional fingerlings raised from eggs provided by the government were planted in September, I950.

FIG. I8-The ruins of Cobija. Water hole at left.

ARCHEOLOGICAL REMAINS

The march of civilization, with Chuquicamata its goal, has played havoc with archeological remains in the region. The old fortress of the Atacamenios, on the west side of the Loa canyon above Chiu-Chiu, has been more than half destroyed by persons searching for vases, beads, implements, and other relics.6 Recently, stringent measures were planned to curb this destruction, and the government has appointed a commission to enforce them. Dr. Greta Mostny, who heads the study of the Atacameiio culture in northern Chile, completed an investigation of the ruins and petroglyphs in the Chuqui- camata region a short time ago.7 She has enlisted the people of Chuquicamata in the work of preservation.

There are still untouched graves among the cliffs bordering certain

6 Stig Ryden refers to this destruction in "Contributions to the Archaeology of the Rio Loa Region," Goteborg, 1944 (noted in the Geogr. Rev., Vol. 36, 1946, pp. 679-680).

7 Greta Mostny: Ciudades Atacamenas, Bol. Museo Nacl. de Hist. Nat., Vol. 24, Santiago de Chile, I948, pp. i25-2ii; idem: Survey of Peine, an Atacameiio Village in Chile, Amer. Anthropologist, Vol. 52, ig5o, p. 296.



CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER I07

indigenous villages. The natives do not disturb them, because of superstition and a natural respect for the dead.

OTHER CHANGES IN THE DESERT

Certain changes in the desert are not connected with the growth of Chuquicamata. The cessation of activities at so many of the nitrate plants between Chuquicamata and Antofagasta has already been mentioned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.. .._tS - ....i S_

FIG. i9-Manager's house at Gatico, once a prosperous mine, now almost completely abandoned.

Prosperous comimunities of the twenties have become ghost towns--adobe walls without roofs, doors, or windows. Everything that could be removed has been taken away by secondhand dealers. The scrap-iron pile at Chuqui- camata contains pieces of all kinds of machinery, mostly of English manu- facture of 5so years ago; miles upon miiles of salvaged light-weight rails are in the storage yards. At a few plants caretakers live in the houses that once were the luxurious homes of managers; others are completely deserted. Waste dumps and graveyards alone remain as silent indicators of the past.

Along the road beside the abandoned oficinas one frequently sees a tree, sometimes green, more often brown. Where there are piques (shallow wells), indicating ground water not too far below, the trees flourish in solitude. Elsewhere they owe their existence to passing motorists. For instance, on the road to San Pedro de Atacama, in a particularly arid spot, is a small pepper tree with a protective windbreak of rocks on one side and above it a sign saying "If you will give me water now, later I will give you shade"; and the truck drivers stop regularly to give as much as they dare of their emergency supply.



io8 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

Another feature of the twenties that had lost importance by the forties is the small mine, whether because of uncertainties and variations in the prices of metals, or of greatly increased labor rates, or because most of the higher- grade minerals were worked out during the last war, I do not know. The old copper mine at San Bartolo, beside the Rlo Grande, where Almagro is said to have obtained copper for shoeing his horses, is closed down and flooded; as late as I927 it was still in operation. Even the prospectors, whom one seldom failed to meet on trips to the hills during the twenties, seem to have disappeared.

CLIMATIC CHANGES

So far I have made no mention of a most interesting and provocative change in Chuquicamata and its surroundings-change in climate. Twenty years is, of course, too short a time to establish a climatic trend, but there is no doubt of a marked difference in the weather. The booklet the copper company issued to its new employees in the early twenties, telling of the utter lack of rainfall, contained the statement "Seldom is there a cloud in the sky." Today there is seldom a day without clouds. In the twenties Chuquicamata averaged about one small shower in perhaps i6 months; snowfall remaining on the hills immediately above the camp for more than a day or two was known to only a few of the oldest inhabitants. Contrariwise, there were three heavy rains between April and June, I948, several light rains in 1949,

and a heavy fall of snow early inJuly, ig50, and some snow persisted in the quebradas above the camp as late as the beginning of September.

Temperatures are considerably higher than 20 years ago. In I926 and I927 the mean temperature was about 580 F., as far as one can tell from the unsystematic observations. Records for the four years I946 to I949 show an average of 650 F., due to higher minimum temperatures-the maximum temperatures have changed little. At the Smithsonian Institution's station for study of the solar constant at Moctezuma, 20 miles south of Chuquicamata and at about the same elevation, the observers state that air temperatures there also are definitely higher than during the twenties. On the practical side, Chuquicamata amateur gardeners are now able to grow a considerably larger variety of flowers.

Windstorms are fewer, less severe, and shorter than in the twenties. I remember one or two strong winter winds in 1926 and I927 when one could not stay on one's horse. There have been no such winds in the winters of I948, I949, and i950. Moreover, storms no longer blow for three to nine days at a time, as they did formerly. The older people here agree that the




forties have been less windy than earlier days. Perhaps it is because of this that the sail car is no longer seen in swift travel along the railroad track.

Relative humidity is believed to be higher. Present records show a mean of about 40 per cent and variations up to 50 or 70 per cent at early morning during spring and summer and down to 20 per cent at late afternoon during July and August. Whereas observations at Chuquicamata in the early twenties showed a daily evaporation rate of about 0.4 inch, a daily rate of 0.25 inch has lately been used for calculations in relation to tailings disposal.

Higher humidity, increased rainfall, higher and more even temperatures, and reduction of frequency and velocity of winds are all linked together in producing a more moderate climate at Chuquicamata than during any of the six years I spent here in the twenties.

On the other hand, the cordillera seems to have lost in rainfall. There was a time, before and during the twenties, when rains and sleet in the subcordillera swelled the Rio Loa and its tributaries in sumimer, as is evidenced by the frequent and somnetimes severe floods recorded at stream-flow measuring stations. Some years were wetter than others. From records of some 35 years before I925, Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy8 worked out a definite seven-year cycle of heavy rains along the coast. The rains of the summer of I925 were extraordinarily heavy in the cordillera east and north of Chuqui- camata, and in I932 there was also considerably more summer rainfall than normal. Since then, however, heavy rains have been spasmodic, and since I943 there have been no large amounts of summer precipitation; indeed, I950 saw no rainfall whatever in the cordillera east of Chuquicamata, a truly abnormal condition. On the Bolivian altiplano, on the other hand, 500 miles to the north, there was unusually high precipitation. It is the general opinion among dwellers on the subcordillera east of Chuquicamata that rainfall has been decreasing, an opinion supported by the fact that the colorful flowers which grow on these slopes have not been seen in profusion for some years. More significant are comparisons I made on the water level in various interior drainage lakes on the Bolivian side of the frontier range. In I948 and I949 the Laguna Colorada water level was at least three feet lower than in I925.9

Stone shelter walls at the northwest extremity of the lake have since collapsed where undermined by waters from a spring that cut back as the lake level fell; and deposits of borax are exposed over a far larger area along the west

8R. C. Murphy: Oceanic and Climatic Phenomena along the West Coast of South America during I925, Geogr. Rev., Vol. I6, I926, pp. 26-54.

9 For a slightly earlier report see F. C. Walcott: An Expedition to the Laguna Colorada, Southern Bolivia, Geogr. Rev., Vol. I5, I925, pp. 345-366.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. ....-- .. -: . .::::a.::.....

FIG 2.etn sno on th hill abv Chqiaaa Auut 19o- mos unsa curne FG 2_3auaClrda nteBlva sd fterne

FI.22Lgn hroa omrl_ondt_auaHdod,whc iso h a ieo h littl rsonwihtecrarpakdCerseCaIaaibckrud



.*...!$.... 9 .i..''')itj''': '':S ''?'l'4''.

*~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ,, 4-4!

::,;~~~~~~~~:f3= M :P;fs"-f~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1 ~~.... ... .. > .;?..X4B

..~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.. ..., .e....

l . _~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A

I , !s

FIG. 23-Field of nieve penitente in north crater of Putana volcano. FIG. 24-The Chile-Bolivia frontier between Cerro jardi'n and Cerro del Inca. Trucks can be

driven upon the pampa surface here. FIG. 25-Cerro Licancabur, the unclimbed, seen from the south.



II2 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

shore than in I925. Again, on the Bolivian side of the range bordering the Cerros de Caniapa and Araral there are shore lines indicating that a single lake formerly covered the area now partly occupied by the Lagunas Hedionda and Charcota (Fig. 22).

The level of the water in the evaporating basins on the Bolivian side of

the volcanic range governs the pressure of the ground water that outcrops

in springs on the Chilean side at the sources of the eastern tributaries of the

Rio Loa. Yet no decrease in water supply has been noted here, nor is there

likely to be much change unless the trend toward drier conditions continues

for a long time. Many springs and water holes in the desert seem to be failing. The grass

of the once green little vegas is now brown. Although this is due, in part at

least, to lowering water tables, there is sometimes another explanation.

During the heavy rains and floods of I925 the sediments buried some of the

outcrops of water, which so far have not reappeared at the surface. Where

Agua Perdido or Pozo Perdido (lost spring) appears on a map, perhaps the

same thing has occurred. At the Quebrada de Mamilla, north of Tocopilla,

a flash flood in I947 buried the people, their houses, some fig trees, and the

spring. No outcrop of water has been seen here since, but it has recently been

reported that trees are beginning to grow out of the mass of sand and stones.

CLIMBING IN THE CORDILLERA

Whatever changes have been wrought in Chuquicamata, Nature's

mighty bulwark of cordillera on the border between Chile and Bolivia

stands unaltered. Southward from the volcano Ollague, at the north end of

the Chuquicamata section of the frontier range, there are many peaks some

I9,000 feet high, and a few 20,000 feet: Cafiapa, Araral, Jardin, Inca, Inacaliri,

Cabana, Linzor, Tatio, Tocorpuri, Putana, Saciel, Licancabur, and, to the

east, Sapaleri, the mountain where Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina meet.

West of the main range are secondary ranges, with the peaks Palpana, Polapi, San Pedro, San Pablo, Paniri, Leon, and Toconce. From three of the

peaks issue columns of steam and sulphur fumes-Ollague, San Pedro, and

Putana. These striking mountains well merit Sir Martin Conway's ("Moun- tain Memories") designation "weird and inhuman scene." Jardin, for in-

stance, is vividly banded in purple, red, orange, and yellow. Below are white

lakes, black lava flows, pampas covered with black, purple, red, pink, orange, and cream-colored stones, and white pumice. At the foot of Tatio are the

geysers that in the twenties formed the basis of an unsound project of gen-



CHUQUICAMATA TWENTY YEARS LATER II3

erating power from subterranean steam-once the scene of busy drilling, now completely abandoned, but always interesting scenically.

In the twenties, when it was necessary to use mules to reach base points for beginning a climb, many sought to scale these mountains. Today, with motor roads to these points, no one seems interested. In the summer of I950,

a companion and I climbed Putana (I9,324 feet), or, more exactly, went as near to the summit as the sulphur fumes permitted. There are two craters, well above I9,000 feet. The northern, about 700 feet in diameter, has a depth of I70 feet at the western rim and 5oo feet at the eastern, of which about 250

feet is a sulphur-coated vertical cliff. Within the crater are three fumaroles, the largest on the east side. The crater also contained two large fields of nieve

penitente; the one shown in Figure 23 is made up of higher columns than are usually found in the Andean cordillera. There were also patches of recent snow, quite different in appearance from nieve penitente. The heat of the volcano probably causes snow to evaporate faster than it melts, with fantastic pinnacles the result.

The southern crater, about IOOO feet south of the northern, is some 450

feet in diameter and some IOO feet in depth. It has no fumaroles, but directly to the south are at least 30 outlets of sulphur fumes, though they are difficult to count because several seem to come from the same fissure and thick smoke and fumes pervade the entire area. Below is a very steep, sulphur-coated, 700-foot slope.

All the peaks of this section of the Chile-Bolivia frontier range have been climbed except the southernmost, Licancabur. Of this conical peak (Fig. 25)

there is a legend of a golden guanaco head, or some other gold object, within its crater. In the twenties a North American engineer stationed at Chuquicamata spent the greater part of two weeks trying to climb Lican- cabur. He failed because of the rock fragments that continually slide down its uniformly steep slopes, the angle of repose of this very new peak having not yet been reached. Among Chuquicamnata's mountains it remains the great unconquered.



Documents

Chuquicamata Twenty Years Later