The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-27
The Roof of Our Hemisphere
BY FRANK c. CARPENTER

was for all the world like the finest of white spun silk wadded or woven into Jumps
 On other lakes in the neighbornood of that desert region I saw mirages such as you find in the deserts of Sa- hara and Libya. and these bodies of salt water seemed to have green islands and ships floating -on them. while llamas and alpacas and Indians walk ed through the air.
 Lake Titicaca and it's little sister, Lake Poopo, are both more or less aka line You can drink the Titicaca water, but It tastes bitter, and the water of Lake Desaguadero is still worse The borax lake Is more bitter than the Dead Sea and the Desaguadero river water tastes very much like that of the Jor- dan.
 The most wonderful lake upon earth is Titicaca. It is two miles and Il half straight up in the air above the sea level and 1t is surrounded by silver clad mountains from 16,0o0 to 22.ooD feet high. You feel the altitude when you ride over the lake. You seem to be on the very roof of the world and know if you could climb oyer those mountains you would drop off Into space. All of the mountains surround ing the lake are covered with snow and the lake itself is so blue that 1t makes one think of the grotto at Can ri, which is famous all over the world. There are many islands in the lake. and in the distance they seem to float tha a c though fbaU balloons or balls and not the oIrLrop- pings of the highest chain of our herni- sphere. One island 1 remembered rose out of the lake like a gigantic mush- room of soft blue velvet, and another resembled a mammoth whale whose head and tail stood high above the blue waves. These were optical illusions due to the atmosphere, but they were phenomena I have seen nowhere else.
 There are many other lakes on the plateaus of the Andes in Peru and Be- uador, and also in Colombia, including Lake Guatavita, which the Indians wor- shiped and into which they threw cffer- ings of gold and silver. I have already written of Lake Urcos, in which the golden chain of Cuzco Hes buried. and there are probably Inca treasures in most of the bodies of water which lie between the two great Andean ranges.
 I am writing this under the shadow of Mount Aconcagua. It is about 23.000 feet high and 1t kisses the sky far above any other point on our hemisphere. Mount Mercederio in Argentina Is only FOO feet lower, and Tupungato and Sorata are each more than q 900 feet The same is true of Illimanl which, like Sorata, looks down on Lake Titiacaca, and Chimborazo in Ecuador is very near the same height The average range of the Andes through o1It a than hfph fa the highest range on earth, with the ex- ception of the Hmalayas, which are about coco feet higher.
 have seen the great mountains of Africa. Mount Kenia is a mile under the top of Aconcagua, and Kilimaniaro and Chimborazo are of about the same height. and if you could have a wireless station on their tops you might communicate with one another on the same plane of air.
 And this reminds me that we are now sending wireless messages right over the Andes. Peru has wireless station on one of her foothills which is farther below the tops of the mountains than the heights of Pike's Peak. Nevertheless, they have sent messages right over the range and have had them received by wireless stations in Rio de Janeiro, not withstanding the whole continent lies be- tween. Rio de Janeiro is on the level Of the sea. Those messages climbed up over 15,000 feet and then slid down to sea level. travelling a distance longer than from Boston to the Great Salt Lake. Tho highest of the Himalay as is Mount Ever est, It measures 5000 feet. If you could put Mount Washington on top of Aeon cagua it would just about equal the height of Mount Everest, the highest mountain of the world. Mount Everest is over twice as high as Pikes Peak or Mount Shasta. It is twice as high as Fujivama