Honeydew Dam

The nine harassed politicos who have been President of hectic Chile since 1929 have had no time for dams--not even for South America's biggest. Last week it was inaugurated not by that suave old diplomat and champion Chilean wangler. President Arturo Alessandri but by his hard-driving Minister of Agriculture, Don Matias Silva.

When New York's potent Ulen & Co. got the dam contract in 1929, swaggering, dynamic President Carlos Ibafiez had been "the Chilean Mussolini" for two years and both his regime and his treasury seemed rock-ribbed. Two years later the Ibafiez Dictatorship blew up and Ulen & Co. wrote in their Report to Stockholders: "The work on contracts for the Republic of Chile was suspended in 1931, due to the inability of the clients to furnish funds for their continuance."

Since the Chilean peso was falling like a plummet, no foreign firm would take over the dam job. but Chileans decided to go ahead under an engineer from, Brento, Italy, swart, indomitable Ernesto Boso. Ulen & Co. had done the first quarter of the work. On the Limari River 200 mi. north of Valparaiso. Signer Boso raised a wall of rock and concrete which slowly backed up enough water to submerge the historic colonial settlement of Recoleta, a town more than 250 years old. Last to disappear was the battered cross atop Recoleta's parish church.

Cheering like wild Indians last week, the half-breeds who did most of the digging roared a welcome to Minister of Agriculture Silva. Said he: "The magnificent artificial lake you have created impounds, I am told, 115,000,000 cubic metres of water. . . . This should end forever fears of the ravages of drought in your great valley from which Chilean produce goes forth" to all the world!"

Notable produce to go forth from this great valley: honeydew melons for the U. S.

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