LAKE TITICACA 139 



though my last trip to the Niter District was rather hard, 

 it was most interesting, and I have I think now as con- 

 nected and quite plainly visible to my mind's eye the 

 whole process of elevation of the Chile and part of Peru 

 coasts. The nitrate beds give a most peculiar aspect to 

 the landscape. It is exactly like riding over a dried-up 

 caldron bottom filled with salt, which is left in huge 

 cakes a couple of feet thick, with horns of salt in all 

 possible shapes sticking out in all directions, through 

 which you wind your way. 



In some parts where the going is somewhat better, 

 the surface reminds one of a cement pavement in very 

 poor condition. I think our former cellar floor, before 

 it underwent repairs, would give you a capital idea of 

 the surface of the pampa. Immediately below the salt 

 beds, on the edges of the ancient lagoons, the nitrate is 

 found ; it is simply blasted out, and the whole extent of 

 territory on which it occurs looks like so many earth 

 works half begun, or as they would look after a heavy 

 cannonading. So that you can readily trace the course 

 of the beds on the hillsides by the hills of refuse neatly 

 piled or heaped up all round. 



Under these nitrate beds are found beds of gypsum 

 and of fine clay, which are useful in their way, the one 

 to hold water, more or less brackish of course, which 

 finds its way from the mountains and is the salvation of 

 the district ; the other makes an amount of dust of which 

 I had no conception, and as you ride along you are 

 nearly suffocated with this salt dust getting into your 

 eyes and ears and mouth, making you feel as if you 

 wished to be soaked in any fluid available. The result 

 is that all the employees up here drink like so many 

 sponges and keep up a continual soaking, for which 



