"Ninguna mierda!"
Guano, the collected droppings of seabirds and bats, is a highly prized and effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen. The high concentration of nitrates also made guano an important strategic commodity. The War of the Pacific 1879-1884, between the Peru-Bolivia alliance and Chile was primarily based upon Bolivia's attempt to tax Chilean guano harvesters. Chile gained substantial mineral-rich territory in the conflict, annexing both the Peruvian province of Tarapaca and the Bolivian province of Litoral, leaving Bolivia as a land-locked country.
The British firm of Antony Gibbs & Sons of London played a major role in the guano industry. Gibbs had been merchants in Lima since Spanish colonial days. They signed their first guano-trading contract with the Peruvian government in 1842, and their last in 1861. At times, Gibbs was the dominant company in the guano trade, primarily because from 1847 onward it held the monopoly of selling Peruvian guano (the best in the world) in Britain and North America. In the 1840s, Gibbs was buying guano in Peru for $15 a ton and selling it for an average of $50 a ton; generally importing about 100,000 tonnes a year and more than 300,000 tonnes in 1858.
The problem for the Peruvian government was that it usually spent each year's guano income before it received it, borrowing money all the time. Thus the nation ended in 1861 practically bankrupt. For example, Gibbs paid the 1842 contract money in advance as a loan to the Peruvians, and 84% of it was spent on equipping the army for a war against Bolivia. Gibbs maximized their profit by selling 90% of their guano through their own agents in London, Liverpool, or Bristol, where Gibbs agents operated. Guano continued to be exported to Britain for a number of years but with the advent of nitrates and mined rock phosphate, the guano trade diminished considerably because the new products had a high and more reliable quality. In the 1870s the guano market crashed: tonnages dropped to about 100,000 a year, and petered out by 1885.
This one's for you, my lovely friend Adrian!
foto Proabonas/ Peru
"The west front of Tyntesfield, the Victorian Gothic Revival house designed by John Norton. Tyntesfield, built by my great, great, great, great grandfather. All from Penguin poo!"- Adrian.
posted by Lou @ 12:00 PM
1 Comments:
After 1840 the Victorian Gothic Revival began to gather steam, and when it did the prime movers were not architects, but philosophers and social critics intertwining deep moral and philosophical ideals.
A.W. Pugin and the writer John Ruskin (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849) sincerely believed that the Middle Ages was a watershed in human achievement and that Gothic architecture represented the perfect marriage of spiritual and artistic values!
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