ld signify.

On a railroad train I saw a well-dressed young Chilean raise the car
window. Behind him was an elderly man who did not like the wind blowing
in and he evidently made some sign to the conductor, who simply put the
window down.

This angered the young man who raised the window again. A little later
the conductor came back and said something to the young man who lowered
the window immediately. The old gentleman had moved by this time and I
supposed that the incident was closed.

A little later the young man called the conductor and had him go and
apologize to the old gentleman who came and sat down in the seat with
the young man. Then they settled their differences, smoked and visited
together like old friends. I felt a sort of admiration for these men
that they would settle their difference on the spot and became friends.
Such a procedure is much better than carrying a grouch.

The country of Chile is a narrow strip of land from fifty to two hundred
and fifty miles wide, but so long that if one end were placed at New
Orleans the other end would reach to the Arctic Circle. The mighty ridge
of the Andes mountains extends almost the entire distance. One of these
peaks in Chile is nearly five miles high--the highest on the globe
except Mount Everest.

In Chile there are many rich valleys yet much of the land is a desolate
desert. One writer suggests regarding this awful silent region that the
Desert of Sahara is a botanical garden in comparison with it. I traveled
five hundred miles along this desert without seeing a tree or a blade of
grass. This was in the northern part where it never rains. Much of the
southern part is covered with water-soaked forests.

Yet this Chilean desert is almost as valuable as a gold mine. Here are
the only large deposits of nitrate of soda in the world. While no plants
of any kind grow in this desert yet from it is obtained the product that
farmers all over the world use for fertilizer. Plants of all kinds must
have food to make them grow and this Chilean desert alone furnishes this
food in abundance and in suitable form.

Many millions are invested in establishments to get this nitrate, or
saltpeter as it is often called, from the worthless material with which
it is mixed and railroads to carry it to port. Little towns have sprung
up along the seashore where the nitrates make up cargoes of hundreds of
ships which carry this fertilizer to all parts of the world.

A gentleman