Monkey Puzzles
SIR,—Ian Niall's paragraph about the monkey puzzle causes me some nostalgia. Just before World War One I spent four happy years encamped in the Andes, with the object of selecting the best route for a southerly trans-Andine railway: I spent a good deal of time in the Chilean province of Arauco, the natural habitat of Araucaria Imbricata or "Chile Pine." The trees are common, too, in the province of Neuquen, on the Argentine side of the Andes, but I noticed that there they did not appear to grow below the 1,200-metre level; on that more barren side of the Asides they form a great feature of the landscape. The timber is scarcely used there, but many's the revolver-shot I have fired in the almost vain attempt to sever the stalk of the. large cone, which contains scores of edible nuts arranged like the sections of a pineapple. The peons were sometimes more successful an the rare occasions when they were low enough to lasso !—Yours faithfully,
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