CHAPTER X 

 METEOROLOGICAL RECORDS FROM THE PERUVIAN ANDES 



Introduction 



The data in this chapter, on the weather and climate of the 

 Peruvian Andes, were gathered under the usual difficulties that ac- 

 company the collection of records at camps scarcely ever pitched 

 at the same elevation or with the same exposure two days in suc- 

 cession. Some of them, and I may add, the best, were contributed 

 by volunteer observers at fixed stations. The observations are 

 not confined to the field of the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 

 1911, but include also observations from Professor Hiram Bing- 

 ham's Expeditions of 1912 and 1914-15, together with data from 

 the Yale South American Expedition of 1907. In addition I 

 have used observations supplied by the Morococha Mining Com- 

 pany through J. P. Little. Some hitherto unpublished observa- 

 tions from Cochabamba, Bolivia, gathered by Herr Kriiger at con- 

 siderable expense of money for instruments and of time from a 

 large business, are also included, and he deserves the more credit 

 for his generous gift of these data since they were collected for 

 scientific purposes only and not in connection with enterprises in 

 which they might be of pecuniary value. My only excuse to Herr 

 Kriiger for this long delay in publication (they were put into my 

 hands in 1907) is that I have wanted to publish his data in a digni- 

 fied form and also to use them for comparison with the data of 

 other climatic provinces. 



A further word to the reader seems necessary before he ex- 

 amines the following curves and tables. It would be somewhat 

 audacious to assume that these short-term records have far-reach- 

 ing importance. Much of their value lies in their organization 

 with respect to the data already published on the climate of Peru. 

 But since this would require a delay of several years in their pub- 

 lication it seems better to present them now in their simplest 

 form. After all, the professional climatologist, to whom they are 



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