La Plata

a city of Argentina. It is situated on the wide La Plata, here an estuary of the ocean, about twenty-four miles southeast of Buenos Ayres. When the capital of Argentina was located definitely in Buenos Ayres, then the seat of the province of that name, the local legislature of the province decided to found a new city for a provincial capital which should be independent of the national capital. A sandy shore was selected. The city was founded in 1882. The streets were laid off in squares, intersected by diagonals, after the manner of Washington, D. C. Forty million dollars were expended in provincial buildings. A cathedral, museum, astronomical observatory, and other institutional buildings were erected. The growth of the city has been phenomenal. It is now the focus of the Argentine railway system, and is the chief port of the republic. Enormous elevators, warehouses, and wharves are busy transferring meats, hides, wheat, butter, wool, ores, forest products, linseed, and fruits, to steamships. Ships come to La Plata and Buenos Ayres not only from the United States, but from the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, and Italy, and are laden yearly with nearly $300,000,000 worth of foods, beverages, oils, textiles, paper, iron, carriages, hardware, pottery, electrical apparatus, and chemicals, needed by the cities, ranches, farms, and forests of the republic.