280 Haunts of the Condor in Peru. 



over the shoulders, Don Jorge with his sketch-book, myself with 

 geological hammer and chisel, we sallied forth from Huanta- 

 jaya, a town built of caliche, or salt and earthy matters found 

 on the surface, and supplying the readiest material at hand. 

 Not the slightest vegetation was to be seen — it was a very pic- 

 ture of utter desolation. 



Journeying up the ravine of San Guillermo, we halted to 

 survey the old silver mines and ruins of Coronel, and the thick 

 beds of a kind of fossil oyster shell, at nearly 3000 feet above 

 the sea — the silver veins having apparently pierced this an- 

 cient mass of organic matter. Then followed a couple of hours 

 more trudging under a burning sun and cloudless sky, up 

 and down, and crossing ravines, and along sandy laderas or 

 sides of mountains, stopping to examine here and there the 

 protruding edges of silver veins, and wondering how so much 

 salt, generally in nodules, could have got there. The un- 

 learned said it had been left there when the sea retired from 

 the land. This is improbable; but after some research in 

 these regions it would appear to the writer that the great quan- 

 tity of salt, which is on the surface only, is most likely formed 

 by infiltration from the Andean regions, where he has seen 

 interminable salt plains at 14,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea. 

 He has succeeded in tracing the salt percolation downwards to a 

 lower country, say to 3000 feet above the sea, the saline waters 

 keeping near the surface, and containing, in addition to the chlo- 

 ride of sodium, boracic, iodic, chromic and other salts.* This 

 saline water has been met with in one of the mines of Huan- 

 tajaya. 



Salt was then found in such quantities that ship loads were 

 taken from the vicinity of the silver mines of Santa Rosa, and 

 thirty years afterwards there was another crop on the same 

 ground. One proof that this salt is not of oceanic origin is, that 

 it is nearly a pure chloride of sodium, and as it appears to be 

 brought by infiltration from the Andes, it may claim a vol- 

 canic origin by the direct combination of chlorine and sodium. 



We will rest awhile, take a little bread and ckarqui (sun- 

 dried beef), a draught of water, and a cigar, in the ruined 

 corales of Guantaca. These corales, or enclosures, had been 

 used by the Indian fishermen of the coast when out hunting 



* Niteate of Soda. — In 1830 only 900 tons were exported, but in 1859 there 

 were nearly 79,000 tons. In 1860 it was calculated that there was some 

 63,000,000 tons of native nitrate on the ground, so that at the present rate of 

 extraction it would take about 1400 years to work it up. 



It would appear that common salt brought down by ravines and percolation 

 from the Andes, in process of time undergoes nitrification, being now in company 

 with lime and the nitrogen of the air, by a process at present not easily explained 

 — the chlorine of the sodium going to the lime, forming chloride of calcium, and a 

 nitrate of soda being produced. 



