90 M. Boussingault ow tlie Effect of clearing Lnnd 



the cultivation of wheat or of maize, but instead, we perceive 

 numerous fields of barley, oats, and potatoes. The lower parts 

 of the country consist of the richest pasturage, and the hills are 

 covered with sheep, which are reared for the sake of their wool, 

 which supplies the extensive cloth manufactures of the district. 

 The numerous villages which border on the lake existed even 

 previous to the conquest ; the great mass of the population is 

 still purely Indian ; they still preserve their old customs and 

 their idioms ; and, in short, matters appear in much the state 

 they were under the empire of the Incas. The only essen- 

 tial difference, perhaps, which it would be possible to point 

 out is, that the rearing of sheep has been substituted for that 

 of the lama, although these latter animals are still by no means 

 uncommon. On the public roads we frequently encounter 

 droves of these lamas, under the directions of the Indians who 

 attend them, and who by their means transport their merchan- 

 dise from place to place. It is a fact admitted by every one, . 

 that the steppe of San-Pablo from time immemorial has never 

 been wooded. Even under the Incas it was pasture-land. 

 Folds for sheep, which were reared on the lake more than a cen- 

 tury ago, are witnesses that the waters have in no degree re- 

 ceded. The route, too, which Huayna-Capac followed, when he 

 left Quito to undertake the conquest of Otavalu, marks to the 

 present day the limits of the water. 



The Cordillera which separates the valley of San Pablo from 

 the coasts of the Southern Ocean is covered, upon the eastern 

 slope, with thick forests, which are almost impenetrable. I 

 note this circumstance, because I have the strongest conviction 

 that an extensive clearing of wood, were it to take place even 

 on a lower level than an alpine lake, and at a considerable dis- 

 tance from it, would still exert an influence over the mean level 

 of its waters. 



We may here also notice, without removing from the locali- 

 ty we have thus introduced to notice, the singular lake of Cui- 

 cocha, which occupies a trachytic basin, in which two islands, 

 which have been examined with much care by Colonel Hall, 

 attest the stability and the uniformity of its level. The study, 

 likewise, of the lake Yaguar-Cocha, or the Lake of Blood, so de- 

 signated since Huayna-Capac dyed its waters with the blood oi 



