Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/281

Rh 1874, and on the 7th of October 1876 died at Munich while attending the sittings of the historical commission.

 PERU (apparently from Biru, a small river on the west coast of Colombia, where Pizarro landed), a republic of the Pacific coast of South America, extending in a general N.N.W.-S.S.E. direction from lat. 3° 21′ S. to about 18° S., with a sea-coast of 1240 m. and a width of 300 to 400 in., exclusive of territories in dispute. Its area in 1006, including Tacna and Arica, and other disputed territories occupied by neighbouring states, was officially estimated at 1,752,422 sq. kilometers, or 676,638 sq. m.; exclusive of these territories, the area of Peru is variously estimated at 439,000 to 480,000 sq. m., the Gotha measurements being 1,137,000 sq. kilometers, or 439,014 sq. m.

With the exception of parts of the Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia frontiers, all the boundary lines have been disputed and referred to arbitration-those with Colombia and Ecuador to the king of Spain, and that with Bolivia to the president of Argentina, on which a decision was rendered on the 9th of July 1909. There have been misunderstandings with Ecuador in regard to some small areas in the Chira valley, but it may be assumed that the line is fixed between Santa Rosa (3° 21′ S.) on the Gulf of Guayaquil, and the Chinchipe river, a tributary of the Marañon. At the junction of the Cauches with that river, that Ecuadorean line descends the Chinchipe to the Marañon, and the Peruvian ascends to a point where it is intersected by line following the eastern Cordillera northward to the head-waters of the Caquetá or Japurá, which forms the northern boundary down to the Brazilian frontier. This claim covers all eastern Ecuador and a large part of south-eastern Colombia. In 1903 there were encounters between small bodies of Peruvian and Ecuadorean troops on the disputed frontier. After arbitration by the king of Spain had been agreed upon, the question was considered by two Spanish commissions, and modifications favouring Peru were recommended. These became known prematurely, an in May 1910 war was threatened between Peru and Ecuador in spite of an offer of mediation by the United States, Brazil and Argentina under the Hague Convention.

From the Japura southward to the Amazon in 4° 13′ 21″ S., 69° 35′ W., and thence up the Javar or Yavari to its source in 7° 8′ 4″ S., 73° 46′ 30″ W., as determined by a mixed commission, the line has been definitely settled. From near the source of the Javary, or lat. 7° 1′ 17″ S., a line running eastward to the Madeira in lat. 6° 52′ 15″ S., which is half the distance between the mouth of the Mamore and the mouth of the Madeira, divides the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in this part of South America, according to the provisions of the treaty of San Ildefonso of 1777. This line has been twice modified by treaties between Bolivia and Brazil, but without the consent of Peru, which claimed all the territory eastward to the Madeira between the above-mentioned line and the Beni-Madidi rivers, the line of demarcation following the Pablo-bamba, a small tributary of the Madidi, to its source, and thence in a straight line to the village of Conima, on Lake Titicaca. The dispute with Brazil relates to the territory acquired by that republic from Bolivia in 1867 and 1903, and was to be settled, according to an agreement