PAPERS OF GENERAL INTEREST 29 



Indiana University to South America. The writer was 

 a member of the party as a traveling fellow of the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois.- My chief activities were the collec- 

 tion of parasitic material, and the collection of the fishes 

 of the Lake Titicaca basin. 



All members of the party reached Lima, Pern, in Aug- 

 ust, 1918. As related by Prof. Eigenmann we followed 

 up the course of the Eimac, and the upper portion of the 

 Mantaro and its tributaries which center at Oroya. 



As an introductory procedure I worked about Lake 

 Junin in Central Peru and spent more than a month along 

 the Huallaga from its sources near 14,000, feet dovm. to 

 2000 feet. ^ 



After early September the writer proceeded independ- 

 ently of the others, first to Lake Junin and the Rio Hual- 

 laga, later to Lake Titicaca. Lake Junin (Chinchay- 

 cocha) is a shallow, mud-bottomed lake near Cerro de 

 Pasco. It is surrounded by great areas of marsh and lies 

 in the midst of an extensive peaty pampa at more than 

 13,500 feet elevation. It forms the source of the Rio 

 Mantaro, one of the principal tributaries of the L^ayali, 

 and this in turn one of the three chief Peruvian affluents 

 of the Amazon. The inhabitants regard it as the true 

 source of the Amazon an honor it shares with a score of 

 high Andean rivers. 



The pampa is a bleak area upon which virtually nothing 

 grows except certain native sessile rosette-plants, repre- 

 senting a number of families, but principally composites. 

 These constitute the pasturage of the few sheep and 

 llamas that can be maintained. Evei^^where in the Pe- 

 ruvian Andes there is a remarkable climatic difference 

 between elevations of 12,000 and those of 13,500 feet. 

 Though Lake Titicaca is five hundred miles farther from 

 the equator than Junin. there, at 12.500 feet, an extensive 

 agriculture is practised. TTheat, barley, and potatoes 

 are rarely seen at elevations of 13,000 and the Junin 

 pampa will produce none of them. At midday tempera- 



• Special acknowledgement is due Pres. E. J. James. Dean David Kin- 

 ley, and Prof. Henry B. Ward of that institution. It was only through 

 their active interest and financial co-operation that the writer was enabled 

 to be one of the party. 



