d to stone. I may here notice some very curious
forms of rock which have long been a subject of controversy among
Peruvian travellers. On the road leading from Ayacucho to Huancavelica,
on the level height of Paucara, about a league beyond the village of
Parcos, there is a considerable number of sand-stone pyramids from eight
to twenty-two feet high. They are of a reddish-white color; but in many
places the inclemency of the weather has overspread them with a blackish
crust. They are detached one from another. Ulloa, in his _Noticias
Americanas_, after fully describing these pyramids, declares himself
doubtful whether they are the work of man or of nature. He inclines to
regard them as human creations, and suggests that they may possibly have
been the tombs of distinguished curacas and caciques; but he admits that
he is not acquainted with any similar monuments in Peru. As each pyramid
consists of only one block of stone, and all are very regularly shaped,
Ulloa is not indisposed to believe that the Indians possessed the secret
art of melting stone. These blocks are, however, of sand-stone, and
their fractures are the result of the inclemency of the weather. They
are all pyramidal-shaped, and tolerably equal in size. In several of
them the points are as sharp and regular as though they had been wrought
by the chisel of the sculptor. These curious pyramids cover the plateau
along a distance of more than two miles: sometimes standing closely
together, and sometimes at considerable distances apart. The whole line
of chalk and slate mountains extending from Ayacucho to Huancavelica is
shattered, and presents similar, though less regular detritus.

I have, in my last chapter, observed that the Cordillera is the point
of partition between the waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.
All the waters of the eastern declivity of the Cordillera--all those
which have their source on the level heights and on the western
declivity of the Andes,--flow from thence in the direction of the east,
and work their way through the eastern mountain chain. Throughout the
whole extent of South America there is not a single instance of the
Cordillera being intersected by a river; a fact the more remarkable
because in Southern Peru and Bolivia, the coast chain is lower than the
Andes. This interesting phenomenon, though it has deeply engaged the
attention of geologists, has not yet been satisfactorily explained. I
concur in the view taken by