PERU 



4600 



PERU 



smelting and refining plants. The important 

 products of manufacture are wire and cable. 

 asphalt paving and roofing, cigars, chemicals, 

 oil and cork, and the value of the entire an- 

 nual output is over $73,000,000. The imports 

 in 1913 were valued at $7,800,000 and the ex- 

 ports of the same year were worth $3,000,000. 

 The city contains a Federal building, city hall, 

 Y. M. C. A. building, Carnegie Library, public 

 market, public hospital and a statue of Wash- 

 ington. A fine railroad bridge crosses the river 

 at this point. 



Settled in 1683, Perth Amboy became the 

 capital of New Jersey province the following 

 year, and remained the seat of government 

 nearly all of the time the British were in 

 possession. The last royal governor, William 

 Franklin, was captured here in 1776. In 1718, 



Perth Amboy became a city. The first name 

 w:i> uiven in honor of the Earl of Perth, and 

 the second was the original Indian name of the 

 place. 



PERTURBATIONS, pur tur ba'shum, a term 

 used in astronomy to describe certain variations 

 in the motion of planets or comets. The orbit 

 of the earth is subject to certain perturbations, 

 or changes, due to the action of other planets. 

 In its journey round the sun the earth does 

 not follow an absolutely direct line of orbit 

 but oscillates or sways in its motion several 

 hundred miles above and below the true line 

 of its orbit. This change, or perturbation, is 

 due to the attraction of the moon. Other plan- 

 ets are also subject to perturbations, according 

 to the influence on them of other heavenly 

 bodies. See ASTRONOMY; PLANET; COMET. 



.ERU, a republic facing the Pacific Ocean 

 for about a thousand miles, in the northwestern 

 part of South America, is a land of romantic 

 history, sublime scenery and economic impor- 

 tance. Its name at the time of the Spanish 

 conquest, four centuries ago, was Tavantinsuyo. 

 Happening to hear the word pelu spoken by a 

 native, an officer assumed it to be the name of 

 the country, and the rush of events caused the 

 strange word, imperfectly transmitted, to spread 

 rapidly and to take the permanent form Peru. 

 The width of the Peruvian republic is about 700 

 miles; the area is about 679,600 square miles, 

 equal to all of the Pacific coast states of the 

 United States and nearly all of Nevada. 

 The People and Their Cities. The population 

 of Peru is about four and one-half millions; 

 about half of this number are of the native 

 race, and the remainder are quite evenly di- 

 vided between the whites of unmixed blood 

 (chiefly Spanish) and the mestizos, or mixtures 

 of European and native stocks. The whites 

 represent the culture of Spain ; and the Spanish 

 language is spoken with a purity unequaled 

 elsewhere in America. The descendants of the 

 original Quichuas are industrious farm labor- 

 ers or shepherds, mild in temper and not in- 



clined to travel or to warfare. The mestizos 

 are miners, freighters and drovers. Large num- 

 bers of negroes were brought to Peru by the 

 early viceroys, and they mingled with the 

 Quichuas. Their mixed descendants are called 

 sambos. 



Of the chief cities Lima, the "City of the 

 Kings," founded by Pizarro as a really Spanish 

 residence city, contains 143,500 people; Callao, 

 the neighboring seaport, 40,000; Arequipa, in 

 the southern mountains, 30,000; Cuzco, the an- 

 cient capital of the Incas, 25,000; Ayacucho, in 

 the same vicinity, 17,000; Conception, on the 

 central plateau, 18,000; and Cerro de Pasco, in 

 the same region, 12,000. 



Physical Features and Climate. Peru is 

 naturally divided into three distinct zones, or 

 regions. The coast strip is a rainless region, 

 where agriculture is impossible without exten- 

 sive irrigation, for the winds (from the east) 

 part with their moisture when passing the cold 

 mountain tops. Between the mountains, which 

 are in three ranges, are two rows of healthful 

 plateaus of great fertility, in a climate that is 

 always springlike. The third region is the east- 

 ern slope, from the mountain region to the val- 

 ley of the Amazon; this is covered with thick 



