The original section of the Central Argentine Railway was from Rosario to Cordoba, a distance of two hundred and forty-six miles, for which a concession was granted to Wheelwright and his associates. From Rosario it began to construct extensions northwards, southwards and westwards. It purchased the tracks of the Western, old Northern and lastly the Buenos Aires and Rosario Railway, until it reached its present commanding place on the railway map of Argentina. Its southern branches touch the Buenos Aires and Pacific in several places, and its western feeders reach out through the provinces of Cordoba and Santa Fé in a number of places. Northward it reaches the city of Santa Fé. This railroad is now building a magnificent new station in Buenos Aires which will cost several millions of dollars, and which will be jointly used by it and the Pacific line. It is also making great improvements in its suburban service and dock frontage by filling in the shallow muddy shore of the river. Furthermore, it has made application to the National Congress for a franchise, or concession, to construct an underground electric railway to connect its station with those of the Southern Railway at Casa Amarillo and Plaza Constitucion. It is also elevating its tracks in Rosario so as to avoid all level crossings, and is building a large new station at Cordoba. [Illustration: RAILWAY STATION, SANTA FÉ] The purchase of the Buenos Aires and Rosario line gave the Central Argentine an entrance into the rich province of Tucuman over a track of the same gauge as its own. After leaving Rosario this line passes through a rich agricultural section as far as Rafaela, and is intersected by several branch lines of the Santa Fé system. Shortly after leaving that place, which itself is only three hundred and fifteen feet above sea level, the country gradually becomes lower and swampy, being about at its lowest on the frontier between the provinces of Santa Fé and Santiago del Estero. After a considerable distance of this low, swampy land the level rises until it is over six hundred feet in elevation, where a branch four miles in length connects the main line with the city of Santiago del Estero, capital of the province of the same name. This city of fifteen thousand has nothing to distinguish it beyond the fact that it is the capital of a province. The line continues to reach higher elevation by easy grades. After crossing the frontier of the province of Tucuman it reaches a most fertile section and at last enters the pretty little city of the same name about which the Argentinian writers grow eloquent.