PREFACE 



The geographic work of the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911 

 was essentially a reconnaissance of the Peruvian Andes along the 

 73rd meridian. The route led from the tropical plains of the lower 

 Urubamba southward over lofty snow-covered passes to the desert 

 coast at Camana. The strong climatic and topographic contrasts 

 and the varied human life which the region contains are of geo- 

 graphic interest chiefly because they present so many and such 

 clear cases of environmental control within short distances. 

 Though we speak of "isolated" mountain communities in the 

 Andes, it is only in a relative sense. The extreme isolation felt 

 in some of the world's great deserts is here unknown. It is there- 

 fore all the more remarkable when we come upon differences of 

 customs and character in Peru to find them strongly developed in 

 spite of the small distances that separate unlike groups of people. 



My division of the Expedition undertook to make a contour map 

 of the two-hundred-mile stretch of mountain country between 

 Abancay and the Pacific coast, and a great deal of detailed geo- 

 graphic and physiographic work had to be sacrificed to insure the 

 completion of the survey. Camp sites, forage, water, and, above 

 all, strong beasts for the topographer's difficult and excessively 

 lofty stations brought daily problems that were always serious 

 and sometimes critical. I was so deeply interested in the progress 

 of the topographic map that whenever it came to a choice of plans 

 the map and not the geography was first considered. The effect 

 upon my work was to distribute it with little regard to the de- 

 mands of the problems, but I cannot regret this in view of the 

 great value of the maps. Mr. Kai Hendriksen did splendid work 

 in putting through two hundred miles of plane-tabling in two 

 months under conditions of extreme difficulty. Many of his tri- 

 angulation stations ranged in elevation from 14,000 to nearly 



