410 ANNUAL EEPOKT_ SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



expedition. His writings on this question seem to have been over- 

 looked, or are at least not so well known as those of Darwin. He 

 doubts the conclusions of Darwin, and says that the San Lorenzo 

 shells are in an irregular bed and not stratified, but are spread out 

 just underneath the soil, and, moreover, there is an absence of an 

 inner cliff on the island, and nothing was seen which could confi- 

 dently be referred to as terraces. He studied the sea cliff on the front 

 of the delta formation to the south of Callao at a place where it is 

 from 45 to 65 feet high. In this cliff he found remnants of trees and, 

 in an upper layer, comminuted recent shells. He regards this cliff 

 as furnishing evidence of an elevation since the beds were deposited, 

 but says that to fix the time may require some further attention than 

 the facts observed. 



Pkehistoric Indian Village at Ancon. 



A short distance to the north of Callao is the small port of Ancon. 

 Archeologic researches have made known to us the very interesting 

 remains of a fishing town of at least great antiquity. These remains 

 and especially the interred mummies are but a few feet above the 

 present beach. The proximity of Ancon to Callao precludes the 

 23robability that an elevation of the coast at Callao which would 

 have raised San Lorenzo Island 85 feet would not have affected 

 Ancon, and the writer wishes to adduce this as the most definite 

 proof obtainable that the coast in that vicinity has remained nearly 

 stationary during the Indo-human period. 



Observations at Abica by Lieutenant Freyer. 



In a letter to Charles Lyell,* Lieutenant Freyer says that to the 

 south of the Morro of Arica, on indistinct terraces, wherever the 

 rock is exposed there are Balani and encrusting Millepora, and that 

 at a height of about 20 to 30 feet they are as abundant and almost 

 as perfect as at the shore. At upwards of 50 feet they still occur, 

 but are abraded by the blowing sand, and there are traces of them 

 at still greater heights. 



Observations at Abica by Forbes. 



From Mejillones, in Chile, northward to Arica Forbes found at 

 intervals shell beds containing exclusively shells of species now in- 

 habiting these waters. These shells are at small intervals above the 

 sea, but do not reach a height of 40 feet. He stated that he was not 

 successful in finding Balani and Milleporas attached to the sides 

 of the Morro of Arica, and argues that no very perceptible elevation 



«Geol. Proc, Vol. II, p. 179, published 1835. 



