PERU', an important maritime republic of South America, bounded on the n. by Ecuador, on the w. by the Pacific, on the s. and s.c. by Bolivia. and on the e. by Brazil. It lies iu lat. 3' 30' s., and in long. 68°-81° 21' west. The general outline resem bles a triangle, the base of which is formed by the boundary-line between Peru' and Ecuador on the north. Its area is above 500,000 sq.m.; and according to a census made in 1S76, the pop. is 2,720,735, not including wild Indians. On the e. side of the Andes, and between the Amazon and the Purus, there is a wide and unexplored expanse of country, upon which both Peru and Brazil have claims, though the boundary is now generally regarded as marked by the Rio Javary. The country is 1100 m. in length, 780 m. in extreme breadth along the northern boundary, but is, little more than 50 m. wide in the extreme south. Following the general direction, and not including windings, the coast-line is 1660 m. in length. The shores are in general rocky and steep; in le s., lofty cliffs rise from the sea, and, in some places, the water close inshore has a depth of from 70 to SO fathoms. Further n., however, sandy beaches occur, and in the extreme n., the shores are often low and sandy, covered with brushwoe.id. Owing to the comparative unfrequence of bays and inlets along the coast, the harbors are few and unimportant. Those of Callao (the port of Lima) and Payta afford the most secure anchorage, and the' others are Trujillo, Cailete, Pisco, Canault, Islay, Bo, Arica, and Inquique. Landing by boats is always dangerous, on account of the dreaded surf. occasioned by the swell of the Pacific, which perpetually beats upon the coast; and when goods or passengers require to be landed on unsheltered shores, recourse is had to the primitive balsas, or rafts, worked by the natives, and capable of carrying two or three persons.
/s/ands.—The islands on the Peruvian coast, although valuable, are extremely few in number, and small in extent. In the n., are the Lobos (i.c., Sea/) islands, forming a group of three, and so called from the seals which frequent them, The largest of them, Lobos de Terra, is 5 in. long by 2 m. broad, and the others, lying 30 m. s.w., are much
smaller. Ott their eastern sides, they are covered with guano, and the quantity on the whole group, when it began to be exported from them, was stated to be 4,000,000 tons. The islands of Macabi and Gualiope, near the Lobos, were originally calculated to cola tarn 2,280,000 tons of guano; hut the guano exported has very greatly exceeded that arnotrit, and in 1872, it was calculated that there will still 750,000 tons of guano on the former and 500,000 tons on the latter. The Chincha islands, three in number, and the most famous of the whole, which began to supply Europe in 1841, had very little guano left on them in 1873. They are called the North, Middle, and South islands respectively. Each presents, on the eastern side, a wall of precipitous rock, with a general slope towards the western shore. The cavities and inequalities of the surface used to be filled with guano, mid this material covered the western slopes to within a few feet of the water's edge. There was no vegetation. The North island has an .area of 202 acres. It is formed of felspar and quartz, and is slowly but certainly decreasing in size. This island used to be wholly covered with thick layers of guano, which was quarried in same places to a depth of 80 feet. Hundreds of convicts were employed in cutting the guano and loading the vessels. The Chincha islands ceased to be worked for foreign export in 1872, and now guano is only taken for Peruvian use from the northern island, where there is still supposed to be 130,000 tons. In. 1874, however, valuable new deposits of guano were discovered on the southern coast of Peru, which are estimated to contain about 80,000,000 tons.
The grand physical feature of the country, and the source of all its mineral wealth, is the great mountain system of the Andes. A general description of the formation and character of the Peruvian Andes is given under the article ANDES (q.v.).