166 
THE DESERTS OF PERU, AND THEIR WEALTH. 
[Nature and Alt, June 1, 1867, 
the top of the mountain, whence they had been 
scared. 
On this unsuccessful termination of our chasse, 
we made the best of our way back — a process not so 
easily effected as described ; it was, however, some- 
what easier than in the morning, for the sun’s power 
had now melted the surface of the snow, and we 
were enabled to get a footing more readily. It 
took us an hour to reach the breclie into France, 
during which I missed my footing once, and shot 
like a sky-rocket about forty feet down a glacier, 
happily without any other inconvenience than the 
trouble of having to retrace my steps. On passing 
the highest glacier we lost sight of our friend, 
Monsieur De G-., who was completely knocked up, 
and remained in charge of one of the guides. 
Meanwhile E. and myself, with another guide, 
walked on as fast as we could to Cauterets, which 
we reached at half-past seven, p.m., having left our 
post on the Arragon mountains at half-past three, 
p.m., thus accomplishing in four hours a distance of 
at least twelve miles over glaciers and rocks, by a 
most fatiguing road for the greatest part of the way. 
Thus ended our “ chasse aux izzards ,” in which, if 
unsuccessful in killing game, we had the satisfaction 
of seeing the animals in their native wilds, and 
were amply repaid by the magnificent scenery 
through which we passed, and the pleasing excite- 
ment which broke the monotony of a usually 
uneventful life. 
THE DESERTS OF PERU, AND THEIR WEALTH. 
By. William Bollaert, F.R.G.S., &c. 
T HOSE who in youth have traversed and hunted 
in the Pampas or the Llanos, ascended to the 
high table-lands, and explored the deserts of South 
America, become attached to those regions. I 
must own to the fact, that I have an affection for 
the Despoblaclos — the uninhabited and uninhabitable 
deserts — having resided in and about those of Peru 
in particular for some time. 
I have already in “Aspects of Nature in Peru,”* 
and “The Flower Spots of the Desert, ”f adverted 
to desert matters, but principally of a local character. 
In the present I purpose to treat the subject of 
the Peruvian deserts in some detail, and endeavour 
to give an account of the more salient objects of 
interest found there. 
The term desert is a general name for rainless, 
stony, and sandy regions ; the hojjelessly barren 
tracts across them are known as travesias, and 
when entered upon for the first time, produce a pro- 
found sensation of melancholy on the European 
traveller. 
The whole of Peru is traversed in its length by 
the Andes, a portion of one of nature’s colossal walls 
running from the Arctic to the Antarctic ; formed by 
huge upheavals of igneous matters, and which still 
show their signs, in the numberless dormant and 
active volcanoes, j utting boldly out of the Cordilleras. 
On their flanks repose stratified rocks, once horizon- 
tal, but now heaved up. On the east, in Peru, 
are the more gently descending lands, stretching 
to the Amazons and Plata ; westwards are the 
narrow, abrupt, and broken slopes, which, as they 
approach the coast of the Pacific, show extensive 
lines of desert plains, and high escarped and dan- 
gerous rocky shores. In a general section from 
west to east, large districts of mountain ranges rise 
* “Intellectual Observer,” December, 1862. 
f “ Intellectual Observer,” April, 1863. 
directly from the sea, in which gold veins are 
occasionally found. The siliceous rocks, by their dis- 
integration or wasting away, are the prime sources 
of the sands of the deserts : then come the por- 
phyries, which contain copper veins. The wearing 
away of this latter rock gives rise to another sort 
of debris. The long-continued scorching heat of a 
tropical sun ; the air, particularly when impregnated 
with saline matters from the sea, and occasional 
dews, are the destructive agents of the rocks. 
On various parts of the coast the dioritic, and 
perhaps granitic, and porphyritic rocks have broken 
through the argillaceous limestones and other strata : 
in these silver is found in veins, as well as in 
nodules of all sizes in the breccia of the argillaceous 
limestones. On the sea-coast are observed many 
sandy shelly plains, some of them entirely made 
up of shells, of species now living in the ocean 
there ; thus showing that these are plains of eleva- 
tion, and not of very ancient date ; indeed the 
process of elevation is going on. In some of these 
plains the shelly deposit is many feet in thickness, 
and it is quarried, calcined, and used as lime for 
building purposes. Where I have observed such 
very large quantities of dead shells in these pro- 
bable plains of elevation, I could only find but 
very few live ones on the shores washed by the sea. 
Have the shell-fish migrated m consequence of the 
region having been disturbed, say by earthquake 
elevatory action 1 
Here and there rather large collections of bones 
of the whale are found on the shores of the Pacific, 
some much above high-water level. My old friend 
and fellow-traveller, Mr. George Smith (of Inique), 
tells me that near the port of Junin, N. of Iquique, 
he lately found bones of whales at an elevation of 
more than fifty feet above sea-level, and buried 
under ten or twelve feet hard, rocky debris. On the 
margins of some of these shelly plains, and where 
