Pilcomayo

Pilcomayo, a river of South America, which takes its rise in two branches in the Bolivian Andes, in the department of Potosi, flows in a very winding course south-east through the Gran Chaco, separating Paraguay and Argentina, and finally joins the Rio Paraguay a little below Asuncion. Its length is said to be 1700 miles, but this is mere guess-work, as no one yet has explored its entire course, and what is known of it is too tortuous for a basis on which to estimate the whole. The volume of water brought down is comparatively insignificant, much being spent in lagunes on its way; at the mouth there is scarcely any perceptible cur- rent, and the breadth is not 60 yards, while within the first 200 miles it narrows more than once to less than 20 yards, and moreover divides into branches, among some of which explorers, like Captain Page, have lost their way. There have been many attempts, all fruitless, made to open the river route between Argentina and Bolivia; since 1556 a score of expeditions have been sent out, and many of the explorers have perished. Some have obtained 6-feet soundings for 255 miles from the mouth, but then came rapids, where the river was not more than 2 feet deep; the upper stream, too, is rendered impassable by numerous rapids, and long canals would be required to open the river to navigation. In its upper course its sands are auriferous and the banks fertile; lower down the valley is swampy. The river's water is rendered like brine by the great salt lakes of the Chaco—in which part the river is buried for hundreds of leagues in a great forest of fan-palms.