298 Dr Tscliudi on Guano, 



more than half of 1845 extended over this whole section. Of 

 course, far less water than is common icas poured into the lakes. 

 The cause of the fall is most obvious ; and there can be no 

 necessity for a resort to the notion of a regular and periodical 

 rise and fall of these inland seas, or to a supposition of an 

 actual sinking of the bottom of their outlets. While the 

 drought extended over a wide extent of our country, the sea- 

 sons were wet, and rain was abundant in the western parts of 

 Europe. — {American Journal of Science and Arts, 2d series. 

 No. 4, July 1846.) 



On Guano (Huanu), 



Opposite to Pisco and Chinca there is a group of small 

 islands, of which the largest, Tangallan, is six English miles 

 distant from Pisco. These islands have, of late years, be- 

 come celebrated on account of the great quantity of guano 

 that has been exported from them. 



Guano (or, according to the more correct orthography, 

 Huanu*) is found on these islands in enormous layers of 

 from thirty-five to forty feet thick. The upper strata are of 

 a greyish-brown colour, which, lower down, becomes darker. 

 In the lower strata the colour is a rusty red, as if tinged by 

 oxide of iron. The Guano becomes progressively more and 

 more solid from the surface downward, a circumstance natu- 

 rally accounted for by the gradual deposit of the strata, and 

 the evaporation of the fluid particles. Guano is found on all 



* The original word is Huanu, which is a term in the Quichua dialect, 

 meaning " animal dung ;" for example, Huanacuhuanu (excrement of the 

 Huanaeu). As the word is now generally "used, it is an abbreviation of Pishu 

 Huanu, bird-dung. The Spaniards have converted the final syllable nu into 

 no, as they do in all the words adopted from the Quichua which have the like 

 termination. The European orthography. Guano, which is also followed in 

 Spanish America, is quite erroneous, for the Quichua language is deficient 

 in the letter G, as it is in several other consonants. The H in the commence- 

 ment of the word is strongly aspirated, whence the error in the orthography 

 of the Spaniards, who have sadly corrupted the language of the Antochthones 

 of P*ru. 



