380 I. Bowman — Physiography of the Central Andes. 



the eastern Andes of Bolivia, no attempt is made to deal with 

 the topographic consequences of the greater erosion which, 

 under comparable conditions, must follow npon greater age, 

 except to say that the greater rainfall of the eastern Andes has 

 resulted in much deeper dissection. Now it has been shown 

 in the preceding chapter that, as compared with the eastern 

 Andes the western Andes are in a far younger state of topo- 

 graphic development ; and that the uplifted and now moder- 

 ately well-dissected peneplain which forms the western Andes 

 of Bolivia was developed to a typical degree. This now 

 deformed peneplain is the dominating fact — the topographic 



Fig. 14. 



Fig. 14. Upper La Paz Valley, west of the Cordillera Real (from Conway, 

 Geog. Journal, 1900). Disregard scale ratio ; divisions express kilometers. 



motif— of the landscape ; and stands out much more clearly, by 

 virtue of less dissection, than its continuation in the eastern 

 Andes. It is this form which led Phillipi * to deny the exist- 

 ence of a" Cordillerenkette " in the western Andes because of 

 the general absence of mountain character. Since Philippi's 

 day the suggestion seems to have passed unheeded except for 

 an occasional quotation, each new writer vying with his pre- 

 decessors in the nse of adjectives fitly to describe the lofty 

 volcanoes and volcanic knots while disregarding the pedestal 

 or platform on which they stand. 



* Eeise durch die Wuste Atacama, 1860 (quoted by Sievers, Slid- und 

 Mittel-Amerika, p. 381). 



