Trujillo, the capital of the Department, is eight miles distant; beyond is the Chicama Valley, noted for its splendid sugar estates. A railway 75 miles long going up the valley to Ascope, does a large business. An extension planned to the plateau above, 12,900 feet, will pass extensive coal fields at Huanday, and reach copper and silver mines at Queruvilca. A maximum grade of 6¹⁄₂ per cent would make the construction expensive. Another road from the sugar lands is being constructed to the better port, Malabrigo. A little north of Salaverry is the minor port of Huanchaco, which also exports much sugar, though the chief shipment is from Salaverry. =Ancash=, the next Department, which is still larger, has five minor ports, one of which, Chimbote, should soon become a primary. For this expectation there are several reasons: first, the harbor, land locked by a long peninsula and several islands, is called the finest on the entire West Coast below Panamá. It has an area of 36 square miles without a rock below its placid surface. Though now with but an ordinary iron pier for lighters, docks approachable by the largest ships could be arranged on an island, which a bridge over a 200 yard channel would easily connect with the main land. There are two other entrances, one half a mile across. The American capitalist, Henry Meiggs, the prime mover in the construction of the South and Central Peruvian Railways, had the foresight in the early seventies to perceive the great commercial possibilities of this harbor. He planned a city on the shore and began a railway to extend up the Santa River Valley to Huarás, 167 miles. The road bed had been constructed 80 miles, the rails laid 60, when the Chilian war broke out. The invaders, after capturing Chimbote, carried off the rolling stock and supplies and destroyed what else they could. Subsequently the project remained long in abeyance, the road being operated for 35 miles only; but after several recent concessions and delays with little work accomplished, the Government has taken over the line and is pushing forward the extension from the point already attained, La Limeña, 65 miles from Chimbote. Work was begun July, 1919, on a branch line to coal fields near Ancos, 15¹⁄₂ miles, which later will pass near two copper deposits and through Huamachuco and Cajabamba. After the first few miles the main road follows the Santa River, which enters the ocean a few miles north of the harbor.