Note 7 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
On this general subject United States Consul Gottschalk quotes C. Reginald Enock, an English engineer, as follows:
“Peru possesses a valuable element in the yet undeveloped hydraulic power which exists on both the eastern and western slope of the Cordillera of the Andes. The source of this water supply is the ice cap above the line of perpetual snow which crowns the summit of the range and the continual and exceedingly heavy snow and rain storms of the high plateaus. All along this vast chain, from Ecuador to Chile, there exists a series of lakes, practically astride the summit of the Andes, at altitudes varying from 12,000 to 17,000 feet above sea-level, and these, together with the streams to which they give rise, form the source of enormous hydraulic energy. The volumes of water which descend upon the Pacific side are not necessarily very great, but they are numerous and constant, and their fall is exceedingly rapid.
“As an example, the river Rimac, which rises in the ice cap of the Cordillera, at an elevation of more than 17,000 feet, debouches on the coast at Callao, with a course not more than 80 miles long. This river is already used as motive power for generating electricity for the railway between Lima and Callao, and could furnish constant and unlimited power over any portion of its course. Similar conditions exist, more or less, with the numerous other rivers and streams all along the 1,500 miles of Pacific littoral belonging to Peru.”