SAN LUIS DE LA PUNTA, one of the provinces of the Argentine Confederation, South America, extends between 31° and 35° S. lat., 64° and 67' 30' W. long. It is bounded S. by the province of Buenos Ayres, E. by Cordova, N. by La Rioja, N.W. by San Juan, and S.W. by Mendoza. The area is about 36,000 square miles. The population is about 20,000.
The country included within this province is described under ARGENTINE. CONFEDERATION. It comprehends that immense tract of country which extends between the provincee of Mendoza on the west and Cordova on the east. Its north-western part runs northward to the border of the Great Salina, and it reaches southward to the oountry of the Ranqueles Indiana, but now claimed by the province of Buenos Ayres. No part of it possesses any considerable degree of fertility. The greatest number of the widely-separated and isolated settlements, consisting mostly of estaneias, or cattle-farms, occur along the road leading from Buenos Ayres to Mendoza, in the hilly country, where tracts of grassy land alternate with ridges of hills and sandy deserts overgrown with mimosas As the grass is coarse and long, the pastures are indifferent ; still cattle, horses, mules, and sheep are abundant, and are exported to a small amount, together with some wooL The corn and maize which are raised are not sufficient for the consumption of the scanty and widely-scattered population. The country between
the Sierra de Cordova on one side, and Mendoza and San Juan on the other, is still worse. As no fresh-water stream runs through it, it cannot be irrigated ; and, with tho exception of a few spots, is a complete desert. The climate Is dry and hot ; rain seldom falls. The gold-mines of La Carolina, about 60 miles N. from the city of San Luis, have ceased to be worked; but the people of the village sift the alluvial soil at certain• places in the neighbourhood, and collect annually a small quantity of gold in dust and small lumps (pepitas). Like the other provinces of the Argentine Confederation, San Luis is a federal state ; the executive power being vested in a governor elected by the junta, or provincial assembly, but for many years there has been no really effective government.
San Luis de la Punta, the capital of the province, is pleasantly situated on the western slope of a hill, 2417 feet above the level of the sea, in 33* 17' S. lat., 65' 46' W. long. ; but it is merely a straggling village-like collection of mud-huts, and does not contain more than 1500 inhabitanta. There is no other place in the province above the rank of a hamlet.