226 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The prisoners are given twenty-five cents per day by the gov- 

 ernment for their support, out of which they are to clothe and 

 feed themselves, and when they can spare a little money, they 

 keep a woman. They generally make out to provide themselves 

 with wives or female companions who have been permitted to go 

 to the islands and hire themselves out for work and prostitution. 

 These are mostly Indian women, who are natives of the country. 



There is no fresh water on the islands, and each vessel is com- 

 pelled by law to carry a ton of fresh water there for every hun- 

 dred tons burden of the ship. The oldest captain in the fleet 

 from each nation, is appointed commodore pro tempore^ hoists 

 his flag as such on his ship, where all disputes are settled. In- 

 deed, the municipal laws of the islands and of the fleet are deci- 

 dedly of Yankee origin. 



The islands are composed of new red sand stone. The guano 

 is (much of it) not composed of bird dung, but is composed of the 

 mud of the ocean. That brought from Peru is so. 



Sea birds and seals come upon the islands when the people are 

 not at work, but it does not appear that their dung or decayed 

 bodies are more than a foot deep on any of the islands. Fish are 

 taken in great quantities about these islands, as are slso seals, 

 which come there in large schools. Sea lions also abound. The 

 composition taken from the islands called guano is stratified, and 

 lies in the same form it did before it was lifted up from the 

 ocean. Our informant says that a geological examination of the 

 islands will satisfy any man that what the guano ships are bring- 

 ing away from these islands, is a very dift'erent thing from the 

 dung of birds or decomposed land animals. 



The whole Peruvian coast opposite these islands, is of the latest 

 geological formation, and seems to be volcanic. The Chincha 

 islands evidently have been thrown up from the bottom of the 

 ocean, with their guano on them. The bottom of the ocean on 

 the west coast of Peru, contains vast deposits of guano. An 

 island, during an earthquake, rose up in the bay of Callao some 

 years since from the sea, containing guano four feet deep, the 

 formation the same as the Chincha islands. 



The average depth of the ocean is said to be a thousand feet, 

 while the average height of all the land above the ocean does not 

 exceed one thousand. The proportion of land to water is only 

 one-fourth of the surface of the globe, and perhaps less. Now, as 

 the ocean is the great basin into which most of the animal and 

 vegetable matter, from sand and sea, is ultimately deposited; 



