DESERT OF

See also:

• ATACAMA
• DESERT OF ATACAMA

ATACAMA  , an arid, barren and saline region of western South America, covering the greater part of the Chilean provinces of Atacama and Antofagasta, the Argentine territory of Los Andes, and the south-western corner of the Bolivian department of Potosi . The higher elevations are known as the Puna de Atacama, which is practically a continuation southward of the great pupa region of Peru and Bolivia . It is a broken, mountainous region, volcanic in places, saline in others, and ranges from 7000 to 13,500 ft. in general elevation . Its culminating ridges are marked by an irregular line of peaks and extinct volcanoes extending north by east from about 28° S. into southern Bolivia . On the eastern side, occasional rainfalls occur and streams from the snow-clads peaks produce some slight displays of fertility, but the general aspect of the plateaus, which are dry and cold in winter and in summer are swept by rain-storms and covered by occasional tufts of coarse grass, is barren and forbidding . They are also broken by great saline lagoons and dry salt basins . This region forms the Argentine territory of Los Andes and is habitable in places . On the western slope the land descends gradually to the Pacific, being broken into great basins, or terraces, by mountainous ridges in its higher elevations, widening out into gently-sloping sandy plains below, famous for their nitrate deposits, and terminating on the coast with sharply-sloping bluffs, having an elevation of 80o to 1500 ft., and looking from the sea like a range of flat-topped hills . This desolate region, which is rainless and absolutely barren, and was considered worthless for three and a half centuries, is now a treasure-house of mineral wealth, abounding in copper, silver, lead, nickel, cobalt, iron, nitrates and borax . It is occupied by many mining settlements, and includes some of the most productive copper and silver mines of the world . See L . Darapsky, " Zur Geographie der Puna de Atacama," Zeits .

Ger . Erdk. zu

Berlin, 1899; G . E . Church, " South America: an Outline of its Physical Geography," Geographical Journal, 1901 ; John Ball, Notes of a Naturalist in South America (London, 1887); F . O'Driscoll, " A Journey to the North of the Argentine Republic," Geographical Journal, 1904 . (A . J .