Cu. VIII. SOUTH AMERICA. 99 



in all Vaires, though at diflerciit depths in different 

 places. 



This plenty of subterraneous streams is doubtless 

 of g'reit advantage to the fertility of the country, 

 particularly with regard to the larger plants/ whose 

 roots strike deepest ; and this seems a bountiful in-^ 

 dnlgence of the wise Author of Nature, who to pro- 

 vide against the sterility which would certainly a feet 

 these countries from a want of water, has sent a sup* 

 plv from the mountains, either in open rivers or sub- 

 terraneous canals. 



The lands in the jurisdiction of Chancay, like 

 the other parts of the coasts of Peru, are manured 

 with the dung of certain sea birds, which abound 

 liere in a very extraordinary manner. These they 

 call guanoes, and the dung guano, the Indian name 

 for excrement in general. These birds, after spend- 

 ing the whole day in catching their food in the sea, 

 repair at night to rest on the islands near the coast, 

 and their number being so great as entirely to cover 

 the ground, they leave a proportionable quantity of 

 excrement or dung. This is dried by the heat of the 

 sun into a crust, and is daily increasing, so that 

 notwithstanding great quantities 'are taken away, it 

 is never exhauiited. Some will have this guano to 

 be only earth endowed with the quahty of raising a 

 ferment in the soil with which it is mixed. This 

 opinion is founded on the prodigious quantities 

 carried oif from those islands, and on the experi- 

 ment made bv di ging or boruig, by which the 

 appearance at a certain depth, was the same as 

 at the superficies ; whence it is concluded, that the 

 earth is naturally endowed with the he iting quality 

 of dung or guano. Tnis would seem L'ss improba- 

 ble, did not both its appearance and smell prove it to 

 be the excrement in question. I was in these islands 

 when several barks came to load with i^ ; when the 

 insupportable smell left me no room to doubt of the 

 H ^ naicU'e 



