No less than from three to six hundred tons of extract of beef are annually exported from their factories, in addition to the tongues, soups, and preserved meats for which they are noted. If one takes in the whole of the River Plate littoral, the dry-salting and meat extract business consumes about half a million animals yearly, a figure which is destined to grow larger year by year. This consumption of cattle is quite apart from that of the freezing trade, which is on a still larger scale, and in which a capital of nearly four million pounds sterling is invested, much of the money coming from Britain and the United States. The first shipments of frozen meat from the Argentine were made in 1877, and so successful was the experiment, that within eight years the first large freezing establishment was erected in Buenos Ayres. Others followed in rapid succession, and the combined turnover of the “Frigorificos,” as they are called, has reached the enormous sum of twelve million pounds sterling per annum. These “Frigorificos” having been for the most part built during recent years, their builders have been able to take advantage of all the experiments and improvements made by hygienic science, and no pains are spared to keep the reputation of Argentine meat above suspicion. The stock slaughtered for foreign markets undergoes a careful examination by veterinary inspectors, the animals being subjected to a severe scrutiny before they are permitted to leave the paddocks and pens adjoining the factories, and allowed to pass along the “race” to the slaughterhouse. In not a few of the factories the “race” has a long, deep trough of water in it, through which the animals pass to cool and cleanse their bodies before they reach the narrow box in which they receive the _coup de grâce_. Directly this has been given, the truck-like floor of the box is wheeled quickly out, and placed in a favourable position to allow of the carcase being hoisted by the hind legs to a transport rail. The bleeding takes place over a channel which conducts the blood into a large underground tank, and the carcase is then placed upon the flaying beds alongside. Very rapidly the hide is removed by highly skilled and well-paid operators, who are fined for every flaw made by them in the skins they remove. The carcase is next opened up in the presence of the Government inspector, who pronounces his verdict as to the soundness or otherwise of the animal. Having been thoroughly cleaned, the meat is sawn in halves and each side hauled up on to a transport rail and run along to another shed where the trimming is completed before it enters the chilling or freezing chamber, as the case may be. For twenty-four hours the meat is subjected to the freezing process, and then each side is quartered, covered first with a cotton wrapper and then with a stouter one of jute, and the quarters, thus protected from dust and dirt, are shipped into the cold chambers of barges which deliver them to