'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!' "


To add to my unrest, during the following summer I read Bandelier's
"Titicaca and Koati," which had just appeared. In one of the
interesting footnotes was this startling remark: "It is much to be
desired that the elevation of the most prominent peaks of the western
or coast range of Peru be accurately determined. It is likely ... that
Coropuna, in the Peruvian coast range of the Department Arequipa,
is the culminating point of the continent. It exceeds 23,000 feet
in height, whereas Aconcagua [conceded to be the highest peak in
the Western Hemisphere] is but 22,763 feet (6940 meters) above
sea level." His estimate was based on a survey made by the civil
engineers of the Southern Railways of Peru, using a section of the
railroad as a base. My sensations when I read this are difficult to
describe. Although I had been studying South American history and
geography for more than ten years, I did not remember ever to have
heard of Coropuna. On most maps it did not exist. Fortunately, on one
of the sheets of Raimondi's large-scale map of Peru, I finally found
"Coropuna--6,949 m."--9 meters higher than Aconcagua!--one hundred
miles northwest of Arequipa, near the 73d meridian west of Greenwich.

Looking up and down the 73d meridian as it crossed Peru from the
Amazon Valley to the Pacific Ocean, I saw that it passed very near
Choqquequirau, and actually traversed those very lands "behind
the Ranges" which had been beckoning to me. The coincidence was
intriguing. The desire to go and find that "something hidden" was now
reënforced by the temptation to go and see whether Coropuna really was
the highest mountain in America. There followed the organization of an