It was probably originally a fishing-village, but with the reclamation of the surrounding morasses, e.g.
The elevated plateaus between these ranges are semiarid and inhospitable, and are covered with extensive saline basins, which become lagoons in the wet season and morasses or dry saltpans in the dry season.
Above sea-level, where it is crossed by a railway; north-east is another extensive saline basin enclosing the " Mar Chiquita " (of Cordoba) and the morasses into which the waters of the Rio Saladillo disappear; and on the north are the more elevated plains, partly saline, of western Cordoba, which separate this isolated group of mountains from the Andean spurs of Rioja and San Luis.
In the extreme west, which is as yet but slightly explored and settled, there is an extensive depressed area, largely saline in character, which drains into lakes and morasses, having no outlet to the ocean.
To the great lagoons and morasses between 36° and 37° S.
