Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/182

154 near Piura. It abounds in Realejo, and at Chumpi, near Guamanga in Peru."

"At the foot of the mountain of Curataqui is a cavern, and from the number of bones of children and animals met with, was probably a place of sacrifice. . . . Walls, ruins, and roads are seen in many parts of Equador, in the plains, sides of mountains, and on their summits; the more irregular are thought to be the work of people long before the conquest of the country by the Incas."

Peru and Bolivia now claim attention. A sandy desert runs along the whole extent of coast from Tumbez to Loa. The western Cordillera is ascended by rugged paths to an elevation where the frozen Andean plains or paramos are found, out of which rise the colossal peaks of the Andes, covered with eternal glaciers. From the burning heat of Egypt to the icy cold of Siberia, there is here every gradation of climate. "In the valleys of the coast, and those of the interior, all the species of quadrupeds and domestic birds known in Europe are now bred."

In Bolivia we have the rich barilla or native-copper mines of San Bartolo; and in the desert of Atacama, Dr. Philippi places the region of meteoric iron. Near Rosario are ancient gold-mines; at Olarios, nuggets have been found of from eighteen to thirty-seven ounces. Copper and gold is worked at Conche; silver, iron, alum, sulphur, salts, borate of lime, and nitrate of soda. Guano is found at Argamo and San Franscisco on the coast. The mines of Potosi—world-wide is their fame! "The City of Silver" is 13,320 feet above the sea, and the "Silver Mountain" top 15,200 feet. The mines of Conche supply the copper hammers for its busy miners. Up to 1846, the 'Anales de Potosi' tells us, £330,544,311 was the value of the precious metal extracted from its mines.

Lipes and many another district are rich in silver mines; in gold and copper; salt-plains there are too, and lakes. In Tariga fossil bones of mastodons and mammoths are found in various places, and gold and silver are said to be met with in the mountain of Polla. But we shall fill page after page if we state half the places in this rich region where gold and silver are recorded; and those who want to know more details—we think we have given enough—must consult Mr. Bollaert's cyclopædia of facts, for such his book really is.

It may not be written with that continuous flow of pleasant diction which gives such a charm to some books of travel; but it is one of the densest masses of facts we ever perused. For any defects of language, we may observe, we should bear in mind that Mr. Bollaert is not an Englishman; and when we remember this, we shall be more inclined to take an opposite course, and wonder at his generally accurate knowledge of our tongue.

The task which the successful candidate for the above prize had to accomplish was "to examine the laws of the distribution of organized fossil bodies according to the order of their superposition in the various sedimentary deposits; to discuss the question whether their appearance or disappearance was successive or simultaneous; to seek for the signification of the relations between the existing state of the organic world and its anterior states." This task, which to perform successfully would require the most universal knowledge of fossil and recent organisms, and in which