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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



reclamation of our so-called "deserts" in 

 the Western States, where wide expanses 

 of nearly level and very fertile soil have 

 been made richly productive simply by 

 being supplied with water. The native 

 agriculture of Peru reached the stage of 

 reclamation projects long before America 

 was discovered by Europeans. Our un- 

 dertakings sink into insignificance in the 

 face of what this "vanished" race accom- 

 plished. 



The narrow floors and steep walls of 

 rocky valleys that would appear utterly 

 worthless and hopeless to our engineers 

 were transformed, literally made over, 

 into fertile lands, and were the homes of 

 teeming populations in the prehistoric 

 days. That the work was well done there 

 can be no possibility of doubt, for many 

 thousands of acres of these artificial 

 lands are still fertile and are the chief 

 support of the modern population of the 

 valleys. The native people take the 

 amazing works of the ancients as a mat- 

 ter of course, as we accept the natural 

 features that surround us, and are no 

 more inclined than we are to such impos- 

 sible undertakings as the ancient people 

 accomplished. 



That the ancient people should have 

 taken to terrace-building is not difficult 

 to understand in the presence of the nat- 

 ural conditions where the art developed. 

 With an agricultural population becom- 

 ing crowded in steep, rocky valleys, the 

 removal and piling up of the stones to 

 give more room for plants would be a 

 most natural step for a primitive people 

 to take. In the early days the building 

 of terraces may have appeared simply as 

 an effective way of disposing of the 

 stones and leaving the largest area of 

 tillable land after the work was done. If 

 there were more stones than could be 

 used in building the walls, the surplus 

 could be disposed of by placing them be- 

 hind the walls to form a porous subsoil 

 for the surface layer of fine earth where 

 the crops were grown. More land could 

 be cleared by building the stones into 

 walls than by merely throwing them into 

 piles. The desirability of piling the 

 stones or building the walls so that they 

 would hold the soil in place and prevent 

 washing would also become apparent. 



The most strikingly artificial feature of 

 the ancient Peruvian agriculture was the 

 covering of steep slopes with narrow ter- 

 races, supported by stone walls and wa- 

 tered by aqueducts built for many miles 

 along the precipitous slopes of the moun- 

 tains. Some of the terraces, those that 

 characterize the Megalithic Age of Peru, 

 were built of enormous stones, often of 

 very irregular form, fitted together with 

 wonderful nicety. 



The labor expended in the construction 

 of these terraces shows that they served 

 some purpose that the builders considered 

 very important. We learn from the early 

 Spanish historians that the Incas had spe- 

 cial gardens for raising the potatoes of 

 the royal household, and that there was 

 a general belief among the people that the 

 growth of crops and the fecundity of the 

 flocks were acutely dependent upon the 

 welfare of the royal family. Hence there 

 was an underlying practical reason for 

 the deep solicitude of the people, so often 

 remarked by the early historians, "That 

 it might be well with the Inca". 



COMPARED TO THE HANGING GARDENS OE 



PERU, THOSE OF BABYLON WERE 



INSIGNIFICANT 



The hanging gardens of Babylon have 

 long been reckoned as one of the wonders 

 of the Oriental world; and yet they were 

 a mere transient toy and for 3,000 years 

 have been only a tradition. The hanging 

 gardens of Peru, though of unknown an- 

 tiquity, are still in existence, and doubt- 

 less as worthy of our admiration as were 

 those of Babylon in the days of Herod- 

 otus and Strabo. 



The Babylonian gardens are said to 

 have been 400 feet square and as high as 

 the walls of the city, variously stated at 

 from 75 to 300 feet. The structure had 

 the form of a pyramid, with broad steps, 

 on which earth was placed for the growth 

 of plants. No doubt such an artificial hill 

 was a striking object in the plain of 

 Babylon, and gave Nebuchadnezzar's Me- 

 dian queen a pleasant reminder of her 

 mountain home, where, it may be, there 

 were valleys with terraced slopes as in 

 Peru. 



Many banks of terraces in Peru are 

 very much longer and very much higher 



