Aveust 2, 1918] 
voted to working out the details of a plan then 
made. I have had the cooperation of various 
institutions and individuals. 
As part of this scheme I urged in Science, 
N. S., Vol. XXII, No. 549, pp. 553-556, the 
exploration of Panama before the canal should 
be completed. This work was well done by the 
late S. E. Meek and S. F. Hildebrand, under 
the auspices of the Field Museum and the 
Smithsonian Institution. 
To examine conditions in Colombia I trav- 
eled in 1913 from Cartagena up the Magda- 
lena to Girardot, thence to Bogoté in the 
eastern Cordilleras, thence across the Magda- 
lena valley to Ibagué, across the central Andes 
to Cartago, up the Cauca valley to Cali, and 
across the western Andes to Buenaventura on 
the Pacific, thence up the Pacifie slope stream 
San Juan, across the divide and down the At- 
lantic slope rivers, Quito and Atrato, to the 
starting point. My assistant during this trip, 
Mr. Manuel Gonzales, later visited the At- 
lantic slopes of the easternmost Andes between 
Bogota and Barrigona, and Hermano Apoli- 
nar Maria, the efficient director of the Insti- 
tuto de la Salle of Bogota, had collections 
made for me in the Llanos east of Bogota. 
Mr. Hugh McK. Landon and Mr. Carl G. 
Fisher later enabled Mr. Arthur Henn, now 
in medical service with the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces, and Mr. Charles Wilson, also 
now in medical service, to explore the Patia 
and Atrato San Juan Basins of western Co- 
lombia, and still later Mr. Henn was enabled 
by Mr. Landon and Indiana University to ex- 
plore the western slope of Ecuador, especially 
the Guayaquil basin. 
Various attempts to secure the means to 
earry the work southward have failed until this 
spring, when the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science made me an ap- 
propriation of five hundred dollars, the Indiana 
University made a similar appropriation, and 
Mr. William G. Irwin, of Columbus, Indiana, 
sent the university a check to cover the larger 
part of the estimated expenses of the Peruvian 
part of the field work. The University of 
Illinois is providing the expenses of an assist- 
ant, Mr. William Ray Allen, who is to devote 
SCIENCE 
109 
his time largely to parasites, and Miss Adele 
Rosa Eigenmann, a medical student in Indi- 
ana University, is to go as a volunteer assist- 
ant. Submarines being willing, we are to sail 
June 21 and the expedition is to be known as 
the Irwin Expedition. 
As far as field work may be planned in ad- 
vance, it is the intention to cross from the Pa- 
cific to the Amazon basin in at least three 
points in Peru: 
First, Pacasmayo over Cajamarca to Balzas 
on the Marafion. The fishes of Pacasmayo are 
known in part at least through collections 
made by Osgood, of the Field Museum. Noth- 
ing is known of the fauna of the Cajamarca 
valley and very little of that of the upper 
Maraiion. 
Second, Callao over Oroyo, Cerro de Pasco 
to Huanuco. An attempt will be made to se- 
cure the faunas of the Rimac, of the High 
Andean Lake Hunin, and of the head waters 
of the Huallaga. 
Third, Mollendo, Arequipa, Puno, Cuzco and 
Rio Urubamba. Attempts will be made to get 
as complete a representation as possible of the 
fauna of the Andean Lakes Titicaca and 
Poopo, and of the Rio Urubamba of the 
Ucayale basin. 
Fourth, ete., some work will be done in Bo- 
livia and Chili, but this will depend largely 
upon whether additional sums become avail- 
able. 
The expedition as definitely planned ought to 
give us as fair a notion of the Pacifie slope 
fauna from the desert of northern Chili to 
Ecuador as we have of the Pacifie slope of 
Ecuador, Colombia and southern Panama, as 
well as of the fauna immediately east of the 
crest of the Andes in Peru. 
I am indebted to the president and trustees 
of Indiana University, who have made it my 
duty to devote myself to the work as outlined 
for the time needed to complete it. 
Cart H. EicenMann 
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