Latin America: Great Falls

The muddy, churning Uruguay River rises in Brazil's pine-covered Serra do Mar, drops south and west to become the twisting channel that separates Argentina and Uruguay; then it pushes out into the broad Rio de la Plata estuary north of Buenos Aires. Along its banks cattle graze, orange and tangerine groves blossom. For ten years Argentines and Uruguayans talked of using the river for cheap power and enriching the broad Uruguay basin. Last week, they got down to cases.

In the solid, somber Foreign Office in Montevideo, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Eduardo Rodriguez Larreta and Argentine Ambassador Gregorio Martinez signed the treaty which provided for a TVA-like project to benefit the two countries. Unlike frayed-at-the-cuff Chile, which last month signed a customs union with Argentina (TIME, Dec. 23), well-off Uruguay asked for no loans. She was fully prepared to pay her full share of the big 3½-billion kilowatt dam that the two-nation authority would build at Salto Grande (Great Falls).