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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The maquina, showing the ends of the cachuchos, at the left of the ladder ; the tanks 

 for water ; and at the right a mule car carrying away the ripio. 



possibility of substituting California petroleum, already used to some 

 extent, is being considered seriously by many operators. 



To get water for the maquinas is not everywhere easy, for the water 

 supply always has been the chief problem in this region. Seacoast 

 towns for a long time depended on supplies brought by vessels from 

 four or five hundred miles farther south. It is interesting to note here 

 that one of the prominent figures in the development of the industry 

 after 1880 was an English iron worker, who is said to have come out 

 to Chile to work on the tanks or boilers of some of these water-carrying 

 vessels, and who later went home a " nitrate millionaire." The first 

 railroads had trouble getting water for their engines, some resorting to 

 the distillation of salt water, but now, for the railroads and the chief 

 cities and towns, piping of water 100 to 200 miles from the Andine 

 streams has relieved the situation greatly. Water, however, still must 

 be used sparingly and almost everywhere the poorer people buy it by 

 the pailful, a discarded kerosene tin generally serving as a pail. A 

 common price is 10 centavos (=2 cents) for five gallons. In the pampa, 

 wells yield a good deal of water, commonly more or less salty, but this 

 source can not be counted on everywhere. Thus in central Antofagasta 

 one plant secures more than 35,000 gallons of water daily from three 

 wells, the deepest of which is less than 100 feet, but another plant, less 

 than a mile away, found no underground water after spending 250,000 

 pesos in the attempt. 



After the water in the cachuchos has boiled for several hours, it is 

 passed to another tank where it encounters fresh caliche, and so on, 

 until a saturated solution known as caldo, or broth, eventually is se- 

 cured. When this point is reached the water is run off to a series of 



