464 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 32 



River opposite the wall. We believe that we located and photo- 

 graphed all of these forts — a total of 14. The largest one appeared 

 to be about 300 feet by 200 feet, with walls about 15 feet high and 

 perhaps 5 feet thick, and was of piled-stone construction. A few of 

 the others were of the same construction, but most of them appeared 

 to be of adobe. 



At Chimbote we at once began preparation for a trip to the wall 

 overland. From a rough sketch made while in the air we figured that 

 we could reach at least the western end of the wall by automobile. 

 There is a bridge over the Santa near its mouth, and, once on the 

 other side, it w^ould be simply a question of how far the car could 

 plow through the sand. The next morning we loaded our equipment 

 into an old Ford and started off on a trip that was to take five hours 

 of bumping over crude roads, slithering down muddy cow paths, and 

 pushing through deep sand. Steering our course by a method of 

 " dead reckoning " especially devised for the occasion, we at last 

 reached the sand-covered ruins of the little village at the end of the 

 wall. It was just by chance that we did not miss them entirely. 

 From the air we had been able to make out the plan of the streets 

 and the walls of the separate houses. From the ground we saw noth- 

 thing but a few sand-covered ridges. 



Just beyond these ridges, which were crumbled adobe walls buried 

 beneath centuries of drifted sand, we saw the wall stretching away 

 to the horizon. We followed along it for several miles. Then the val- 

 ley began to narrow and the cross ridges to dip more sharply down tOt it. 

 The Ford could go no farther. We struggled on afoot for another 

 mile, lugging the cameras and stopping at intervals for still and mo- 

 tion pictures showing construction details and the character of the 

 terrain on which the wall stands. 



The wall, as far as we followed it, now averages about 7 feet 

 in height. It is built of broken rocks set together with adobe ce- 

 ment, and, where is has not been greatly disturbed, its outer surface 

 is so well chinked with small rocks that it would be practically 

 impossible to scale it without ladders. In occasional places, as 

 seen from the air, the wall must still be 20 or 30 feet high where it 

 crosses gullies. We found it impossible to make anything like accu- 

 i-ate measurements. The rocks that have slipped from the top with 

 the beating of the winds and the occasional rains spread away for 

 a considerable distance on either side of the wall and aid the drifted 

 sand in obscuring its base. We estimated that, in its original state, 

 it was about 12 or 15 feet thick at the base and was built to taper 

 upward to an average height of 12 or 15 feet. 



