RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 53 



cargueros. Our first day's journey, of about 15 

 miles, brought us to Lamas l a town of 6000 

 inhabitants, near the top of a conical hill, that 

 reminded me of similarly situated towns and villages 

 in Valencia, as they are depicted in Cavanilles' 

 History of that province of Old Spain. 



The Hill of Lamas is plainly volcanic, although 

 there is no evidence of eruptions in the shape of 

 lava, or any obvious crater, unless certain small 

 lakes without inlet or outlet a little below the 

 summit may be considered such. The fertile soil 

 which covers its flanks, and yields abundant crops 

 of every esculent that will bear the climate, espe- 

 cially of the indispensable poroto (a kind of 

 kidney-bean), consists almost entirely of decom- 

 posed shales of divers colours sulphur-yellow, 

 vermilion, purple, slate-blue, and black. These 

 shales belong to the Triassic series near Tarapoto 

 I found ammonites of immense size in them and 

 have apparently been broken up by the protrusion 

 of a columnar jointed trap-rock, which is here and 

 there exposed in the shape of a sloping floor, 

 divided with much regularity into squares, rather 

 less than a foot on the side, and called by the 

 natives ladrillos or bricks. The slope of the 

 floors is always towards the apex of the mountain, 

 and is inclined to the horizon at from 10 to 30. 

 Overlying the shales there has been a soft white 

 sandstone, in thick strata, great part of which has 

 been decomposed and carried into the hollows, and 

 even into the plain below, by the torrential rains 

 leaving only a few scattered blocks of more tena- 

 cious material than the rest. 



1 Lamas: lat. 6 5' S. ; alt. (convent) 25(14 I-:, ft., (hill-top) 2849 fl 



