as the cedar, which is less dense than the _quebracho_, not only floats, but is improved by parting with sap in the water. At Posadas the rafts are taken to pieces, and the trunks are delivered to the saw-mills. [49] In Brazil the saw-mills for the araucarian pines are established along the Sao Paolo-Rio Grande Railway. But timber is not the chief forest industry in Misiones, as it is on the Chaco. Beside the _obraje_ in the forest there is the _yerbal_, a works for dealing with the _mate_ (_Ilex paraguayensis_). It is well known that an infusion of _mate_ (a kind of tea) is an important element in the food of the western States of South America. Gathering the leaves of the _mate_ has been a profitable occupation for centuries: a unique instance, perhaps, in the forest industries of South America. It has never been interrupted, though it has often changed its locality. The plantations made by the Jesuits were abandoned when the missionaries were dispersed. After the close of the eighteenth century Paraguay became the chief area of production. Villa Rica seems to have been the most prolific centre of the _yerba_. After that date, however, the Jujuy basin, further north, was exploited, and the _yerbateros_, who came from Curuguati, advanced eastward as far as the Falls of the Guayra on the Parana. In the nineteenth century the trade in Paraguay _mate_ seems to have suffered less than the tobacco trade from the policy of isolation adopted by the Dictators of Paraguay. The descriptions given by Mariano Molas, Demersay, and others, show that the business continued fairly actively. It even extended northward, and reached as far as the Rio Apa. Villa Concepcion became a rival _yerba_ market to Villa Rica. The monopoly exercised by the Paraguay Government, however, and the restrictions put upon the navigation of the river, led to the development of the _yerba_ industry in the eastern Misiones on the left bank of the Uruguay. Itaquy served as port of embarkation. In the last third of the nineteenth century the yards moved from the left to the right bank of the Uruguay. Since 1870 the Parana has supplanted the Uruguay, and the _yerba_ trade has concentrated at Candelaria. This meant the resurrection of Misiones. In 1880 San Javier, on the Uruguay, worked up 800 tons of _yerba_, and Candelaria more than 1,000 tons. The _yerbales_ round San Javier began to run out, and the _yerbateros_ had to go further and further up the Uruguay, toward the _yerbales_ of the tableland of Fracan and San Pedro. Candelaria was mainly fed by the _yerbales_ of the right bank of the Parana, on Paraguayan territory. Posadas has now succeeded Candelaria, and the _yerbales_ that depend upon it are scattered over both banks up the Parana.