TOPPING THE ANDES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1936, Page 3

TOPPING THE ANDES

GREAT POWER PLANT

BIG BOLIVIAN SCHEME

IN AID OF INDUSTRY

Coupled with the announcement of the organisation of an expedition from Cambridge University, England, to study the basin of Lake .Titicaca (Bolivia) is another of a "large-scale, post-war reconstruction programme" to include tapping the waters of the famous lake for a gigantic power scheme, for tin smelting, electrifying railroads, and using the surplus water for irrigation, says a writer in the "Christian Science Monitor." President Sorzano announced the power concession, involving £5,000,000, and the favoured one was stated to be Mauricio Hochschild, head of the firm of M. Hochschild and Co., which has large mining interests in South America. Lake Titicaca is the highest large sheet of water in the world. It has an elevation of 12,000 feet above sea level and covers an area of 3200 square miles. As it is an international waterway, owned jointly by Bolivia and Peru, the question of Bolivia's right to drain water from the lake has been raised. Engineering experts, however, doubt whether the amount of water required for the power scheme would visibly affect the level of the lake. Titicaca is actually a great depression in the Andes range, the lake being supplied with the rains and melting snows from surrounding peaks and highlands. It overflows its southern rim into another depression. The lake waters are exceptionally cold —too cold, it is averred, for shore folk to swim in. The water is also slightly brackish, but certain kinds of fish, chiefly of a coarse variety, are to be found there. A recent agreement between the Bolivian and Peruvian . Governments was aimed to increase the supply and improve the variety of fish in the lake and to call in American experts for advice. It is planned to establish a large fishing industry on the shores of the lake in benefit of the Indian population of both countries. It is recalled that a power concession on similar lines was granted to the Hochschild firm in 1929, for a period of five years. When the time expired a request, it is believed, was made for further extension. This was granted, for a further period of five years, on the understanding that the concessionaires obtained the necessary capital —estimated at £s,ooo,ooo—quickly. It is estimated that the work will take at least five years to complete. The Bolivian Government will receive 5 per cent, of the gross earnings of the plant. ELECTRIC SMELTER. A further clause in the Hochschild contract calls for the construction of. an electric smelter or smelters, probably at Viacha, the junction point for all Bolivian railways leading into La Paz, the power for the smelter to be derived from the hydro-electric plant, the main point in the programme, which will be constructed at Sorata, east of Lake Titicaca. The power produced at Sorata will permit the electrification of Bolivia's railways and operate her industrial plants. Mauricio Hochschild and his brother, Sali, from the Santiago office, have been, flitting between Europe and the United States of late, and were recently joined by another partner, Heinrich Ellinger. In New York questions are still being asked as to who will finance the bond issue which it is expected will result. In London it is whispered that, the: Rothschild firm may become interested. It is stated in South American mining circles that the Titicaca project has claimed the attention of Mauricio Hochschild for a number of years. About seven years ago, when Bolivia was booming, he set a staff of expert engineers to survey the undertaking and to look for the. most suitable site for a power plant depending on the lake waters. Apparently, this research work led to the selection of Sorata, near the famous mountain of that name, about twelve miles from the eastern shore. Sorata, it should be added, is near Mina Matilda, a zinc property owned by Rothschild. The lake port for this mine is Carabuco. Mining technicians seem confident that the project will be a success. London and New York magnates declare that Hochschild would not identify himself with anything of this kind unless he was certain that it would succeed. He is recognised as one of the foremost mining and general industrial experts on the west coast of South America. POWER EXPENSIVE. It is thought that by tunnelling into the lake from lower ground, a perennial source of power, from which electricity can be generated, would be available. Comparatively speaking, power is expensive in Bolivia, and it is hoped even eventually that transmission lines will render it available throughout the mining districts at figures below those now ruling. The Bolivian Power, Company, one of the principal suppliers of power at the present time, is Canadian controlled. The plans for electrical smelting of tin have, naturally, attracted the interest of the Government, for tin is "all in all" to Bolivia. They have also attracted interest in England, where all tin smelting is done, and in the United States, where the hopes of doing some tin smelting are always entertained. In a recent Washington inquiry it was admitted that the United States has a "political" as well as commercial interest in Bolivian tin. In other words, the supplies from Bolivia can be protected en route, while those from Malaya and Africa are more vulnerable. According to Hochschild, hopes are entertained that it may be possible eventually to develop an electrical process which would permit the reduction to metal of concentrates of far lower grade than it is possible commercially to export, as freight charges by land and sea would be eliminated. If this were the case, he says, not only would the very expensive dressing be avoided but also the major losses experienced in the higher stages of concentration. Thus the possibility of much cheaper tin mining operation would be opened up. FIRST OF THIS KIND. The expedition from Cambridge University to study the Titicaca Basin will represent the first reconnaissance of the lake of this kind. The mission is headed by Professor J. Stanley Gardner, a writer and lecturer on natural science. The mission will make exhaustive studies from every angle and be thoroughly equipped to conduct its investigations. The Lima Geographical Society in Peru, at a special meeting, offered every facility to the visiting delegation from England and will send at least one of its own delegates to accompany the expedition. A special steamer will be placed at the mission's disposal on the lake, where soundings will be taken and diving bells used to take tests of the bottom. Announcements from England indicate that the collection of data on the geological formation of the region, from the Palaeozoic era to the postglacial Quaternary era, which dates from the. emergence pf-tlie Andes

Range from the sea, will be the main purpose of the mission.

At the same time there will also be broader studies, as members include specialists in a wide range of research, including geographers, zoologists, botanists, and pisciculturists. Therefore, in the train of the main geological problem there will be studies on the evolution of plant and animal life on the "roof of the world," with glances into the origin of that much-discussed and ever-mysterious being, the "Titicaca man," who might prove to be as old or older than the Neanderthal man and the Pithecanthropus or apeman. Studies of existing fish, bird, animal, and plant life actually existing in the Titicaca region may also serve to trace the missing link with antidiluvian fossiles and shells. It is admitted in Peru that the whole Titicaca Basin so teems with problems that the six months which the mission proposes to devote to its researches may prove all too short.

But the main purpose of the mission, it is reiterated, is geological, to "prod the beginnings of time" in the Titicaca section of the Andes, believed to be one of the earliest parts of the New World. Local geologists explain that the Cordillera is composed of parallel ranges imposed on a broad and deeply-eroded base. Volcanic mountains rise above a folded base of ancient sedimentary rocks which have suffered the intrusion of more recent granites and mica-schists. The primary series (sanslitone) is mainly conspicuous on the eastern plateau as far north as Bolivia. Secondary rocks (conglomerates) cover most of the western plateau from Peru southward, while limestones are prominent on the eastern plateau which includes the Titicaca Basin. Naturally, the last-men-tioned will form the principal study of the English university mission.