THE MATERIAL RESOURCES OF LIFE. 345 



Chemical art has not done anything toward the appropriation of 

 this obstinate element. Nothing nitrogenous can be made of nitrogen. 

 The manufacturers depend on gatherings from tlie sparingly distrib- 

 uted nitrates of the earth. As machinists have dreamed of perpetual 

 motion, sleeping chemists may dream of an invention to bring atmos- 

 pheric nitrogen into use, that all the barren places may be made fertile, 

 and the whole earth flourish as a garden of fatness. But for this 

 dream to realize the proportions of a fair probability it is quite essen- 

 tial that chemistry should be well asleep. 



The chief commodities bearing nitrogen are nitre or saltpetre 

 (potassium or sodium nitrate), and ammonia. In Hindostan, the rich 

 soil-mould, warm and alkaline, becomes thinly crusted with nitrate, 

 which is gathered and brought to market as East India nitre. Gun- 

 powder, gun-cotton, and nitro-glycerine, as well as chemical products, 

 are made with it. In the War of 1812, America was thrown upon her 

 own sources for gunpowder-material, and enough nitre was found in 

 the cave-deposits of the Southwestern States. Then France was 

 hemmed in by hostile armies, and had neither nitre nor cave-deposits, 

 but it was after the work of "Lavoisier of immortal memory," and 

 the government put trust in chemistry. Berthollet and the rest soori 

 justified the trust in the perfection of the "nitre-plantations" beds 

 of farm-refuse with wood-ashes exposed to the air. 



These products, soil-nitre and compost-nitre, and the ammonia 

 obtained as a by-product in the manufacture of illuminating gas, 

 serve their several purposes in the arts and applications of man, but 

 their limited quantities do not warrant their addition to the soil for 

 the increased growth of food. Now, unlike these common supplies, 

 the earth possesses a special resource for nitrogen in combination, 

 anomalous in being fully mineralized and remarkable in being both 

 concentrated and extensive, a chain of mines full of nitre. On the 

 Pacific coast of South America, extending from the fourth to the 

 fortieth degree of south latitude, about 2,400 miles along the slope 

 of the Andes to the sea, in Bolivia, Peru, and part of Chili, there has 

 been found a line of deposits of sodium nitrate, the "Peruvian nitre." 

 The beds are of variable thickness, covered by one to ten yards' depth 

 of earth and half-formed sandstone. The dry soil of the most of this 

 rainless country is pervaded, in some degree, with this deposit. The 

 mummied remains of the old Peruvian people are embalmed with it 

 by the earth in which they were buried ; and its crystals glisten on 

 those ghastly relicts which were jjresented in the Peruvian depart- 

 ment of the Centennial Exhibition, and those brought to this country 

 by Dr. Steere. It has been estimated that in the province of Tarapa- 

 ca, within fifty square leagues, the quantity of the nitre is not less 

 than 63,000,090 tons. The appi'opriation of this vast resource has 

 been taken up rather slowly, but has much increased for ten or 

 twelve years past. Vessels laden with it go to the coasts of manu- 



