Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/219

Rh

of these nitrates. Fertilizers were then quite unheard of in most places; industrial uses of nitric acid and its compounds were few; and for making explosives—then gunpowder was the only one—small, scattered deposits of true saltpeter provided the raw material.

Nearly a hundred years ago, it is said, a Scotchman living near Iquique spread over part of his garden some soil containing white crystals. That part of his garden flourished much more than the rest. Thereupon samples of the soil were sent to Scotland for experiments which revealed the nature of the substance and its fertilizing value; and thus, so the story goes, the foundation was laid for the great nitrate industry. A decade later, or about 1826, a Frenchman is credited with having established the first real nitrate works in the pampa back of Iquique. Soon after that an Englishman, a German and a Chilean are supposed to have followed suit, and the business began to grow slowly. A little more than 8,300 tons of nitrate are said to have been exported in 1830.

The nitrate fields then were divided among three countries. Peru owned Tacna and Tarapacá. Bolivia owned most of what is now Antofagasta, while Chile owned from Atacama southward. This last region was then not known to contain nitrate, and still is the least important part of the fields. Peruvians and Chileans became most active in the industry, perhaps because the fields were more easily reached from Peru and Chile than from the highlands of Bolivia. The Chileans turned their attention largely to the Bolivian province of Antofagasta, where their influence became so marked that it is said not more than one person in twenty was a Bolivian, and that one probably an officer in the army. Important concessions were granted by Bolivia to Chilean interests,