JOHN HARRISON BLAKE. 567 



ing the country between the Pacific Oceau and the Andes, constituting 

 the extreme southern part of Peru, the western part of Bolivia, and the 

 northern part of Chili, and all the knowledge that could be obtained was 

 that it was, for the most part, uninhabited and uninhabitable, destitute 

 of vegetation, and known as the Desert of Atacama ; it was on the shores 

 of the northern part of this desert that the shipment ports referred to 

 were situated. 



The winter of 1835 and 1836 was very cold. New York harbor was 

 frozen over, and it was not until the lOth of February, 183G, nearly a 

 month after the time proposed for her departure, that the ship " Factor," 

 in which Mr. Blake was a passenger, made her way through a channel 

 cut in the ice and sailed for Valparaiso, where she arrived June 9, 

 sailing again on the 9th of July for Arica and Tacna, whence Mr. Blake 

 proceeded by land to Pisaqua and Iquique, arriving at the latter place 

 on the Gth of August. The next three months were devoted to surveys 

 in the province of Tarapaca, and on the 7th of November Mr. Blake left 

 Iquique with a pack train, two Indians, and dogs to make the first re- 

 corded exploration of the Desert of Atacama from north to south, arriving 

 at Valparaiso on the 10th of March, having occupied four months and 

 three days in a trying passage over an arid and waterless region, in which 

 all of the animals were lost and the men nearly perished from thirst. 



On March 15 Mr. Blake left Valparaiso for Buenos Ayres by San- 

 tiago, the pass of Uspalato and Mendoza, crossing the Andes and the 

 Pampas de la Plata, arriving on the ■28th of April and making prepara- 

 tions for immediate departure for the United States.* 



At this time Rosas, the then Dictator of the Argentine Republic, was 

 engaged in strengthening his position by military activity and the pro- 

 jected subjection of the Indian tribes to the westward. Mr. Blake was 

 detained as consulting engineer on fortifications, and was not released 

 until the autumn of 1837,f when he returned to the United States to find 



* Tlie only record of this interesting and perilous journey is to be found in 

 family letters, in the collection of mummies and other objects of arcliaioloj^ical 

 value now in the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, and in the description of tliis 

 collection published from Mr. Blake's notes in the reports of the IMuseum. The 

 carefully kept notebook, containing not only the daily incidents of travel, but 

 especially the memoranda of geologic observations, of barometric measurements 

 and surveys, was stolen after Mr. Blake's return to this country, and never 

 recovered. 



t Information to be derived from a traveller who had just crossed the continent 

 was of value, and Mr. Blake received a courteous note, saying that a house adjoin- 

 ing that of the British Embassy had been placed at his disposal, and requesting him 



