COOK—THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 8307 
are much higher hills back of these, that appear also to contain salt; so that there seems 
a supply here for all people and for all time.@ 
We passed the salt hills of Callana Yacu, where the people of Chasuta and the 
Indians of Ucayali and Marafion get their salt. The hills are not so high as those of 
Pilluana, and the salt seems more mixed with red earth. It “crops out” on the banks 
of the river, which are shelving, and rise into gentle hills as they recede, covered with 
bushes and small trees.} 
Every year at this season the Indians of the Marajion and Ucayali make a voyage up 
the Huallaga for their supply of salt. They travel slowly, and support themselves by 
hunting, fishing, and robbing plantain patches on their way.¢ 
Unfortunately, this traveler saw no coconut palms, or at least 
made no note of them, but a reference to coconuts in eastern Peru 
has been pointed out to me by Professor Pittier in the surveys of the 
Intercontinental Railway Commission, near a place called Choros, 
on the Maranon River, at an elevation of 765 meters. 
Vegetation existed only in narrow strips along the immediate edges of the side 
streams entering the Marafion, and consisted mostly of coarse bushes and undergrowth. 
At this particular point the natives had a small patch of sugar, and there were half a 
dozen cocoanut palms.@ 
No coconut palms are reported by the English botanist Spruce, 
who explored the region of Tarapoto in eastern Peru and ascended the 
humid valleys of the Pastasa and Bombonasa rivers on his way to 
Quito. ¢ 
It would be reasonable to turn to these saline districts of South 
America if any attempts were to be made to definitely ascertain the 
original home of the coconut by finding it in a truly wild state. Such 
a discovery is hardly to be expected, because of the probability that 
localities suited to the spontaneous growth of coconuts would have 
attracted human inhabitants, even in very early times. We may 
hope, however, to find a series of local varieties or subspecies of the 
coconut palm in these interior localities, varieties that will be more 
hardy and vigorous than the maritime forms of the palm cultivated 
in the humid parts of the Tropics, and more likely to thrive under 
semitropical conditions. 
aQp. cit., pp. 154, 155. 
bOp. cit., p. 165. 
cOp, cit., p. 168. 
d Intercontinental Railway Commission Report, vol. 3, p. 16. On a previous page 
of the same series (vol. 2, p. 61) coconut palms are noted as cultivated “‘in a few places” 
in the Cauca Valley of Colombia. 
eSpruce, Richard, Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes, edited by A. R. 
Wallace, vol. 2, ch. 17. (London, 1908.) Also Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Infor- 
mation, 1909, p. 216. 
