Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/227

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millions of tons of waste some time may be reworked if conditions in the industry should make economies necessary.

A good deal of capital is needed now to start the nitrate business on a large scale. Many of the older oficinas, as the establishments are called, are small, representing an investment of not more than 25,000 pesos to 50,000 pesos. But a large modern plant may cost 6,000,000 pesos or more. For this reason the industry tends to remain in the hands of companies, about 80 in number, of which a few large ones really dominate the industry. In all there are about 160 oficinas in existence, English, Chilean, Austrian, German, etc., but for one reason or another not all of them are being operated. Exhaustion of the supply of caliche is the most common reason, for as a general rule an oficina is built for a given tract of nitrate land, with the idea of abandoning the oficina when that supply is exhausted. It does not pay to haul caliche any considerable distance, for a ton of average caliche will yield only about 30 pesos' worth of nitrate, on which the profits may be 10 pesos. There are only one or two "Yanqui" oficinas, the "powder trust" being interested in at least one of these. United States capital invested in western South America seems to have been attracted more strongly by other kinds of mining.

A modern oficina, like the Aníbal Pinto, in central Antofagasta, running twenty-four hours at full capacity, may have a daily output of 5,000 Spanish quintals (quintal = 101 pounds) of nitrate. The cost of production in May, 1912, at this plant, was stated to be about 2.50 pesos per quintal, covering everything up to the time of shipment. To this figure must be added the transportation charges to the vessel in Antofagasta harbor, about 1 peso per quintal, and the export duty of 2.50 pesos per quintal, making total costs on board vessel 6 pesos per