476 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



by means of the microscope, they are found to be made up of the skeletons of diato- 

 maceae, polycystina, and sponges, invariably of marine origin, and sometimes identical 

 with those living in the adjoining ocean, and fossilized in the adjacent infusorial strata. 

 Also, we find that some of these forms occur in patches exactly as they grow in nalure, 

 and as they would present themselves if they were deposited from water, and not as 

 they would be if they had to pass first through the alimentary canals of mollusca and 

 similar small animals, then through the same organs of fish and birds, in turn, as they 

 would have to do to get into the guano in the manner commonly supposed. 



In California we have a deposit of "infusoria," improperly so called, accompanied 

 by bitumen, which bitumen, the gentlemen of the state survey believe, has been 

 derived from those "infusoria," and that contiguous thereto we have guano deposits. 

 Now let us see if we have a similar association of facts anywhere else. At Payta, in 

 Peru, Dr. C. F. Winslow discovered an "infusorial" deposit almost identical in char- 

 acter with the California one. Near by are bitumen springs ; and lying off the coast 

 are the guano islands of Lobos, Chincha, Guanape, and others. At Netanai, Japan, 

 we have extensive "infusorial" strata and bitumen; it is not recorded whether guano 

 occurs in that quarter. In the island of Barbadoes we have "infusorial" strata, bitu- 

 men, and, near by, the guano islands of the Carribean sea ; and, I am informed, guano 

 is abundant on the small islands and rocks nearly throughout the West Indian archi- 

 pelago. In the island of Trinidad we have "infusorial" strata and bitumen, and, of 

 course, adjacent guano. At all of these localities volcanic action is evident ; but we 

 have some localities of guano without "infusorial" strata or bitumen, as yet recorded ; 

 while we have the celebrated "infusorial" strata of Virginia, which, by a little stretch 

 of the imagination, may be supposed to be related in some way to the petroleum of 

 West Virginia and Pennsylvania. In Algeria we have "infusorial " strata and bitumen ; 

 but I never heard of guano having been found near by. From all of these facts, and 

 others that I have collected of no less importance, derived from chemical and micro- 

 scopical characters, I have come to the conclusion that guano is not the excreta of 

 birds, deposited upon the islands and main land after their upheaval, but that it is the 

 result of the accumulation of the bodies of animals and plants, for the most part 

 minute, and belonging to the group which Haeckel has included in a new kingdom, 

 separate from the animal as well as the vegetable, under the name of Protista, and 

 subsequently upheaved from the bottom of the ocean. Subsequent chemical changes 

 have transformed it into guano, or, heat and pressure have so acted upon it that the 

 organic matter has been transformed into bitumen, while the mineral constituents are 

 preserved in the beautiful atomies that make up the mass of the extensive "infusorial" 

 strata found in various parts of the world. 



The Chincha islands have been visited by a competent geologist, Mr. Kinahan, of 

 Dublin, and he has pointed out that they have been upheaved by volcanic action within 

 a recent period, geologically considered. I have found a remarkable confirmation of 

 my theory in a paper, read before the American Institute, New York, some years since, 

 by Mr. Alanson Nash, detailing the observations of a Mr. F. Nash made during a resi- 



