country which is irrigated by the melt from the Mendoza River. All the surrounding country is dry desert of thorn brush or small trees. Mendoza has about 80,000 population + lies on the vast Pampas Plains at the foot of the Andes. Maconcagua also is sometimes visible from the fort on the town but it was cloudy age with the morning on the Andes. (5) Our train left at 18 M. Day clear + warm. We rood for about 2 hours thru cultivated irrigated fields before we came to the dry desert. The desert was as level as a floor & covered by a good growth of yellow south barbed mesquite brutes, or trees, so closely that no lone plains appeared. So dry is this desert & level that there is no to rock ballast on the railroad simply the rails are laid on the plain is packed in by the soil + no grinding was a rule. Water comes me did not melt. The depressions that catch the local drain.