Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/62

40 Replies to the above questions relative to the different phenomena which are observed in Peru.

Notwithstanding the person who is solicited to make the replies, has not himself been in the low parts of Peru, where it never rains, still the communication he has had with several individuals who have resided there for a great length of time, enables him to speak satisfactorily to several of the questions; and he does this with the greater pleasure, from a conviction that investigations of such a nature tend to the advancement of the natural sciences, and the welfare of the human race.

1. In low Peru, that is, throughout the extent of the occidental coast of South America, situated towards the part of the Andes which takes a western direction, commonly called the valley of Tumbes, comprehended between five and fifteen degrees of south latitude, rain has never been known to fall.

2. The whole of this tract of territory is constantly sheltered from the east winds by the Cordilleras of mountains named the Andes.

3. The height of those mountains, employing a mean proportion, is estimated at fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea; there are, however, several peaks which rise higher than the rest, and have, unquestionably, an elevation of more than twenty thousand feet.

4. The summits of the above-mentioned mountains are commonly covered with clouds, except during the months of January, February, and March, in the northern part of the Cordillera, when it usually happens that the fogs and clouds disappear altogether, the tops of the mountains being covered with snow. The clouds by which they are overspread during the