Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 471 



voyage is performed in half the time occupied by the other ; and, 

 moreover, the Peruvian government levy an export duty of £3 per 

 ton, whereas the African is collected without any such payment, 

 there being few, if any, natives in the neighbourhood to interfere 

 with its removal. Already many thousands of tons of shipping have 

 been dispatched to the coast for cargoes, and other vessels are daily 

 departing on the same errand. 



" Mr. G. Thompson, of the firm of Borrodaile and Thompson, who 

 travelled in those parts in 1823, describes the natives as 'a tribe of 

 Hottentots called Namaquas; a pastoral people, resembling the 

 aboriginal tribe of the Cape Colony in their general characteristics ; 

 living chiefly on milk ; addicted to a roaming life ; and of a dispo- 

 sition mild, indolent and unenterprising.' 



" As regards the probable establishment of trade with the natives, 

 ivory, horns, hides, and perhaps gums, might be obtained from them 

 in exchange for tobacco, beads, &c. The country improves in fer- 

 tility towards the north, in which direction, at about a hundred 

 miles distance from Angra Pequena, the Damaras country com- 

 mences ; and Mr. Thompson reports it to be ' very rich in copper 

 ore, which is smelted and worked by the natives.' 



" Yours, &c, 

 "J.Turner." 



The guano, in the state in which it was received, formed a moist 

 chocolate-brown powder, intermixed with numerous particles of a 

 whitish substance. It possessed no urinous odour, but smelt strongly 

 of ammonia. On examination under the microscope, no crystals of 

 any kind could be detected in it ; but it contained numerous remains 

 of plants, partly in a state of decomposition, but still exhibiting a 

 green colour, and globules of starch in the cells, likewise brown and 

 white feathers, fragments of egg-shells and fish-bones. The aqueous 

 solution was of a light reddish-brown colour, was strongly ammonia- 

 cal, and deposited on slow evaporation an abundant crop of crystals 

 of the triple phosphate of ammonia and magnesia. On adding nitric 

 acid to the filtered liquid, an abundant flocculent brown precipitate 

 subsided, which consisted of humic acid and extractive. The inso- 

 luble portion was of a light sandy-yellow colour. 



On boiling with solution of potash and precipitation of the filtered 

 solution with hydrochloric acid, a light brown flocculent substance 

 subsided, which amounted to 5*50 per cent. This was first regarded 

 as uric acid, but on further examination it proved to contain but 

 slight traces of that ingredient, and to consist of a substance 

 allied to humic acid. 



To determine the absolute amount of ammonia, one of the ingre- 

 dients on which the value of guano chiefly depends, a weighed por- 

 tion of the guano in its normal state was analysed according to the 

 method described by Varrentrap and Will, and afforded 9*70 per cent. 



The other ingredients were determined in the usual way, and ac- 

 cording to the results of analysis 100 parts of the guano* in question 

 consist of — 



* While drawing up this article for publication, we received from a friend a 



