The Andes of southern Peru, geographical reconnaissance along the seventy-third meridian (1916) (14780191824)

Identifier: andesofsouthernp00 (find matches)
Title: The Andes of southern Peru, geographical reconnaissance along the seventy-third meridian
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Bowman, Isaiah, 1878-1950 American Geographical Society of New York
Subjects: Yale Peruvian Expedition (1911) Physical geography Geology Human geography
Publisher: (New York) Pub. for the American Geographical Society of New York by H. Holt and Company
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries



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l-lera Vilcapampa is snow-crested, containing a number of finewhite peaks like Salcantay, Soray, and Soiroccocha (Fig. 140).There are many small glaciers and a few that are severalmiles long. There was here in glacial times a much larger systemof glaciers, which lived long enough to work great changes in thetopography. The floors of the glaciated valleys were smoothedand broadened and their gradients flattened (Figs. 137 and 190).The side walls were steepened and precipitous cirques wereformed at the valley heads. Also, there were built across the val-leys a number of stony morainic ridges. With all these changesthere was, however, but little effect upon the main masses of thebig intervalley spurs. They remain as before—bold, wind-swept,broken, and nearly inaccessible. The work of the glaciers aids the mountain people. The stonymoraines afford them handy sizable building material for theirstone huts and their numerous corrals. The thick tufts of grass THE COUNTRY OF THE SHEPHERDS 65
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Fig. 36—Regional diagram for the Eastern Cordillera or Cordillera Vilcapampa.Note the crowded zones on the right (east and north) in contrast to the open suc-cession on the left. In sheltered places woodland extends even higher than shown.At several points patches of it grow right under the snowline. Other patches growon the floors of the glaciated valley troughs. in the marshy spots in the overdeepened parts of the valleys fur-nish them with grass for their, thatched roofs. And, most im- 66 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU portant of all, the flat valley floors have the best pasture in thewhole mountain region. There is plenty of water. There is seclu-sion, and, if a fence be built from one valley wall to another as canbe done with little labor, an entire section of the valley may beinclosed. A village like Choquetira, located on a bench on the val-ley side, commands an extensive view up and down the valley—animportant feature in a grazing village where the corrals cannotalways be buil