198 Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist. 
of guano at one time can take care of their own interests ; 
but it is the small farmer who will be placed at the mercy of 
the country dealer, if all kinds of Peruvian guano, some of a 
very questionable character, are thrown upon the market, and 
all of them sold as " Genuine as imported from Peru." In the 
interest of the agriculturists, I would therefore strongly urge upon 
the Peruvian Government officials the propriety of equalising 
the various qualities, ' and of instructing their agents to sell 
only one quality, to fix the price of the guano in accordance 
with its intrinsic value as ascertained by analysis, and to give 
a reasonable guarantee with the sales of their guano. 
Of other kinds of nitrogenous guanos, the yearly imports of 
which into England do not amount to many thousands of tons, 
Ichaboe and Saldanhay Bay guano require to be noticed. 
On Ichaboe and other islands, near the coast of South Africa, 
guano-beds were discovered some thirty years ago. These beds, 
formed in the course of many years by the dung of sea-birds, 
were shipped to England in large quantities soon after their 
discovery, but they have long since been exhausted. 
The original deposits on Ichaboe and Saldanhay Bay were 
guanos, which, having been exposed to climatological influences, 
had in the course of time lost more or less of their original 
nitrogenous constituents. 
These guanos occupied an intermediate place between the 
more recent and better preserved highly nitrogenous sea-birds' 
excrements, and the purely phosphatic guanos. 
In a paper on " Phosphatic Guanos," which appeared in the 
last volume of the ' Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society,' 
the formation of phosphatic guano from the excrements of sea- 
fowls is briefly described. In explaining this subject I re- 
ferred to Ichaboe guano in terms which, without qualification, 
may appear to reflect prejudicially upon the quality of the 
present importations of Ichaboe and Saldanhay Bay guano. I 
therefore embrace the first opportunity which presents itself, to 
remove any unfavourable impression which my remarks may 
have made upon the reader respecting the quality of these 
guanos. These remarks refer to the original guano-beds on 
Ichaboe and Saldanhay Bay, and do not apply to the importa- 
tions which have been made into England since the exhaustion 
of the original beds. 
My attention was directed to this matter a short time ago by 
Mr. Daniel de Pass, who is one of the proprietors of the Ichaboe 
group of islands. This gentleman informs me that he and his 
partners came into possession of these islands soon after the large 
deposits were removed in 1843, and after several parties had 
shipped the refuse guano in 1849, and, finding it worthless, sold 
