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National Geographic : 1920 Jun
Contents
PERU'S WEALTH-P ive conservation of the resources with which Nature had endowed them. GUANO INTRODUCED IN EUROPE With the Spanish conquest and the consequent decline of agricultural and industrial life, the guano industry fell away to a condition of insignificance until near the middle of the last century. Humboldt, about 1804, brought samples of Peruvian guano to Europe and advo cated its commercial importation. This great scientist and traveler is usually, but erroneously, given credit for the introduction of guano to Europe. He was indeed responsible for errors of statement that may have been deplorable in effect upon the future conduct of the industry of guano extraction. He at tributed the guano to birds of land rather than marine habit and he supposed that current deposits were of the slightest im portance. His statement furnished no incentive to the protection of the useful birds. Up to about 1840, however, the beds remained virtually undiscovered to the foreign world. Existing then in practi cally undiminished quantity, the deposits represented the accumulation of thou sands of years, lying in thick beds, ex posed or deeply buried, and waiting only to be shoveled up and loaded into ships for conveyance to the markets of the world. After guano was actually introduced to the foreign markets, about 1843, there began an era of extraction on a scale hitherto unknown. Islands were sur rounded by vessels, fifty or more at a time, and each year saw the disappear ance of hundreds of thousands of tons. DEPOSITS MORE THAN I00 FEET DEEP It is stated that more than ten million tons were extracted between 1851 and 1872 from one small group of islands, representing an average annual exporta tion to the value of twenty or thirty mil lions of dollars. A single island, it is said, was lowered more than a hundred feet by the removal of its thick crown of guano. The possibility of exhaustion of the de posits was not then contemplated, and no thought was given to conserving the birds. While private fortunes were being RODUCING BIRDS 543 gained, the government was making and executing great plans for public improve ments, and the future of the guano in dustry was heavily mortgaged to defray the expense. Cries of warning came from the country's creditors, as rumors of probable exhaustion spread abroad and threatened the security of foreign-held bonds. On all sides there appeared a mass of literature in the form of notes, pam phlets, and books that dealt almost as much in invective, charges, and counter charges as in actual analysis of the situ ation. A readjustment was finally made in the last decade of the century and the industry has continued both for home agriculture and for export, but in a regu larly declining condition as regards the export trade. THE SEA SUPPLIES THE FOOD FOR THE GUANO-PRODUCING BIRDS The innocent agents in the production of the mines of wealth that were the basis of this world-wide commotion were the numerous sea-fowl of the coast, which found their abundant food in the ocean and made their nests upon the islands or points of shore. The peculiar climatic conditions pre viously mentioned offered merely the proper environmental conditions for the preservation of the product. The pri mary requisite for abundant bird life is the existence of a plentiful food supply, and this is found in the schools of small fish, called anchobetas, that swarm in the Peruvian Current. There "shoals" of fish, acres in extent, are often pursued in the water by bonitoes and other large fish, while beset from the air by thou sands of birds. Billions of pounds of fish must be con sumed each year by the birds, besides the incalculable quantity devoured by other fishes; but the fecundity of the ancho betas is such that their numbers are still maintained. At times great areas of the sea are made red by myriads of small, brightly colored shrimp-like crustacea; and these, too, play a part of importance as food for the fishes and birds. Not all of the birds are of equal im portance from the commercial point of view. Indeed, three species virtually support the guano industry at the present
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