1922] on Physiological Effects at High Altitudes in Peru 609 



some of the other localities to which we might have gone, and to 

 which others have gone before us ; for example, Monte Eosa, Pike's 

 Peak in Colorado, the Peak of Teneriffe, and the Himalayas. With- 

 out going at length into the merits of each, the advantages of Peru 

 will he sufficiently apparent if I compare it to one of the above, and 

 I will select one of which I have personal experience, namely, the 

 Peak of Teneriffe. Peru and Teneriffe have in common the merit of 

 being close to the sea. In either case the baggage can be put on 

 board at Liverpool or Southampton and taken to your mountain base 

 without further transhipment. Peru, however, possesses the first 

 necessity of laboratory equipment — an abundant supply of water — 

 up to a height of 16,000 ft., i.e. 4000 ft. higher than the Peak. In 

 the latter place the highest altitude at which I know of water is 

 7000 ft., while at 11,000 ft. — near the situation of the Alta Yista 

 Hut — there is an ice-cave from which water may be obtained by 

 melting the ice. 



Again, the conditions of transport are vastly different in Peru 

 from what they are in Teneriffe. In Teneriffe everything goes up 

 the mountains by mule. The amount of apparatus which can be 

 taken up is therefore small ; and if it arrives whole at its destination 

 the worker is fortunate. If it arrives broken, there is little hope of 

 mending it. We were very fortunate, at an early stage of our pre- 

 parations, in getting in touch with Mr. Oliver Bury, the Chairman 

 of the Peruvian Corporation. The Peruvian Corporation owns, 

 among other railways, the trunk line which goes directly inland from 

 Lima, climbs the Andes to a height of almost 16,000 ft., and then 

 drops down to Oroya (12,000 ft.), situated on the pampa between 

 the two parallel ranges of the Cordilleras. From Oroya railways run 

 north to Huancayo, and south to Cerro de Pasco (14,200 ft.), which 

 place was to become our principal seat of operations. To the 

 Peruvian Corporation we owe our laboratory. For the purpose we 

 were assigned a luggage van, 45 ft. in length, together with a goods 

 van which we used as a store ; and these they offered to take to any 

 locality on their system at which we desired to work. While the 

 American members of the party awaited our arrival at Lima, they 

 fitted up the luggage van and made a very fine laboratory of it. At 

 one side the door was closed up and windows put in its place, benches 

 and shelves were fitted, electrical wiring was installed, and ultimately 

 we had electric light, power and heat. What greater contrast in 

 efficiency could exist between our mobile laboratory at Cerro, jacked 

 up off the bogies to prevent vibration, fitted with X-ray plant and 

 apparatus for the measurements of hydrogen ions, on one hand, and 

 the Alta Vista Hut in Teneriffe, with its paraffin stoves which 

 emitted little but smuts and barely sufficed to melt a few handfuls of 

 ice ? Of more account, however, than all these advantages was the 

 fact that, up to an altitude of 16,000 ft., in Peru there is a population 

 most of which is connected with the mining industry. This popu- 



